From eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au Wed Aug 1 01:40:10 2007 From: eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au (Eric Scheid) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 01:40:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: Social computing for government and business In-Reply-To: <20070731001409.E29B81614E@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: On 31/7/07 9:47 AM, "Tom Worthington" wrote: > As I found out only last week, the trendy > new buzzword for this is "Enterprise 2" > > . > To find out exactly what that is, if anything, we will need to wait > for another seminar. Fred Cavazza has written a long post that aims to answer the question: what is enterprise 2.0? To quote: > If "Web 2.0" was 2006?s buzzword, we begin to hear much of Enterprise 2.0. To > make a long story short, it means using inside an enterprise the successful > tools of web 2.0. > > Please, do not sum-up this to internal blogs or wikis, this notion gather much > richer fields and above all implies deep mutations which go farther than > rolling-out new tools. Before going through my overview map (which can confuse > you), I?d like first to introduce the subject. http://fredcavazza.net/2007/07/27/what-is-enterprise-20/ Lots of diagrams, and there's even discussion of using virtual 3D spaces. e. From kim at holburn.net Wed Aug 1 03:04:35 2007 From: kim at holburn.net (Kim Holburn) Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:04:35 +0200 Subject: [LINK] New secret search powers Message-ID: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/new-secret-search-powers/ 2007/07/31/1185647903263.html?s_cid=rss_news > New secret search powers > > Tom Allard > August 1, 2007 > > POLICE and security agencies will be given unprecedented "sneak and > peek" powers to search the homes and computers of suspects without > their knowledge under legislation to go before Federal Parliament > next week. > > The extensive powers - which also give federal police the right to > monitor communications equipment without an interceptions warrant - > come amid growing public disquiet about counter-terrorism powers > following the bungled handling of the Mohamed Haneef case. > > Under the laws, officers from the federal police and other agencies > would be able to execute "delayed notification warrants", allowing > them to undertake searches, seize equipment and plant listening > devices in businesses and homes. > > Police and security officers will be able to assume false > identities to gain entry and conduct the surreptitious searches. > > But the person affected by the raid does not have to be informed > for at least six months, and can remain in the dark for 18 months > if the warrant is rolled over. > > The warrant is to be issued by the head of a police service or > security agency without the approval of a judicial officer. It can > also be extended for more than 18 months with the sanction of the > minister. > > The lack of judicial oversight was justified by the Minister for > Justice and Customs, David Johnston, on the grounds that a court or > judicial officer might leak news of the warrant. > > "I don't want to impugn anyone, but the security of these > operations has to be pristine," Senator Johnston told the Herald. > > Moreover, the warrant can be issued for any offence that carries a > prison term of 10 years or more, despite a strong recommendation > from a bipartisan Senate committee earlier this year that it only > be used for investigations into terrorism, organised crime and > "offences involving death or serious injury with a maximum penalty > of life imprisonment". > > The new powers have their genesis in a meeting of state, territory > and federal police ministers two years ago to create uniform search > warrants. > > They are scheduled to be introduced to the Senate on Tuesday when > Parliament resumes. ..... -- Kim Holburn IT Network & Security Consultant Ph: +39 06 855 4294 M: +39 3494957443 mailto:kim at holburn.net aim://kimholburn skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny. -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961 From brd at iimetro.com.au Wed Aug 1 08:17:05 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 06:17:05 +0800 Subject: [LINK] ANZ, govt in chip card agreement Message-ID: <36150.1185920225@iimetro.com.au> ANZ, govt in chip card agreement July 31, 2007 Australian IT http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22166108-15306,00.html THE federal Government has signed an agreement with ANZ that will see some of the bank's customers trial secure access to online government services. The agreement between ANZ and the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, allows ANZ business customers trial access to government services using a chip card carrying an IdenTrust digital certificate. Access to federal, state and local government services would be provided during the trial, ANZ said in a statement. ANZ working capital managing director Chris Cooper said the bank for the first in Australia to provide customers with secure access to government services. Uses for the card could include access to applications for government grants, licence applications, customs reporting and access to government tender information. Trials are scheduled to begin later in the year, with ANZ planning to offer access to more customers if the trials prove successful. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From cas at taz.net.au Wed Aug 1 09:22:17 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:22:17 +1000 Subject: [LINK] New secret search powers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070731232217.GC4898@taz.net.au> On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 07:04:35PM +0200, Kim Holburn wrote: > http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/new-secret-search-powers/2007/07/31/1185647903263.html?s_cid=rss_news > >> New secret search powers >> >> Tom Allard [...] >> >> Moreover, the warrant can be issued for any offence that carries a prison >> term of 10 years or more, despite a strong recommendation from a >> bipartisan Senate committee earlier this year that it only be used for >> investigations into terrorism, organised crime and "offences involving >> death or serious injury with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment". now, does anyone still think that those of us who said that 911 and the so-called "War On Terror" were being used by Western, allegedly-democratic governments as an excuse to trample the rights & freedoms that *define* western liberal democracies and bring in a big-brother police surveillance state were being "overly paranoid"? aren't these sorts of powers EXACTLY what all the 1950s-1980s anti-soviet, anti-eastern-bloc propaganda made a big point of scaring us about (and rightly so, that kind of ubiquitous surveillance has a chilling effect on freedom and a poisonous effect on society)? >> They are scheduled to be introduced to the Senate on Tuesday when >> Parliament resumes. the interesting question, to be answered in the Senate soon is whether Rudd's me-too-ism is a cunning anti-wedge tactic or if he's a real Howard-clone. craig -- craig sanders From brd at iimetro.com.au Wed Aug 1 10:07:18 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:07:18 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Businesses having second thoughts about Vista Message-ID: <18620.1185926838@iimetro.com.au> Businesses having second thoughts about Vista Gregg Keizer July 30, 2007 Computerworld http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028478&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1 Fewer businesses are now planning to move to Windows Vista than seven months ago, according to a survey by patch management vendor PatchLink Corp., while more said they will either stick with the Windows they have, or turn to Linux or Mac OS X. In a just-released poll of more than 250 of its clients, PatchLink noted that only 2% said they are already running Vista, while another 9% said they planned to roll out Vista in the next three months. A landslide majority, 87%, said they would stay with their existing version(s) of Windows. Those numbers contrasted with a similar survey the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based vendor published in December 2006. At the time, 43% said they had plans to move to Vista, while just 53% planned to keep what Windows they had. Today's hesitation also runs counter to what companies thought they would do as of late last year. In PatchLink's December poll, 28% said they would deploy Vista within the first year of its release. But by the results of the latest survey, fewer than half as many -- just 11% -- will have opted for the next-generation operating system by Nov. 1. Their change of heart may be because of a changed perception of Vista's security skills. Seven months ago -- within weeks of Vista's official launch to business, but before the operating system started selling in retail -- 50% of the CIOs, CSOs, IT and network administrators surveyed by PatchLink said they believe Vista to be more secure than Windows XP. The poll put the security-skeptical at 15% and pegged those who weren't sure yet at 35%. Today, said PatchLink, only 28% agreed that Vista is more secure than XP. Meanwhile, the no votes increased to 24% and the unsure climbed to 49%. Reconsiderations about Vista have given rival operating systems a second chance at breaking into corporations. Last year, Linux and Max OS X had only meager appeal to the CIOs, CSOs, IT and network administrators surveyed: 2% said they planned to deploy the open-source Linux, while none owned up to Mac OS X plans. July's survey, however, noted a sixfold increase in the total willing to do without Windows on at least some systems: 8% of those polled acknowledged Linux plans, and 4% said they would deploy Mac OS X. PatchLink's survey results fit with research firms' continued forecasts that corporate deployment of Vista won't seriously begin until early next year. Although Microsoft recently announced it had shipped 60 million copies of Vista so far, it has declined to specify how many buyers are businesses, or even what percentage of the estimated 42 million PCs covered by corporate license agreements have actually upgraded to Vista. The poll also offered evidence that corporations are even more afraid of zero-day vulnerabilities -- bugs still unpatched when they're made public or used in exploits -- than they were last year. Zero-day vulnerabilities are the top security concern for the majority of IT professionals, according to the survey, with 53% of those polled ranking it as a major worry. In the December 2006 survey, only 29% of the administrators pegged zero-days as their top problem. "The prospect of zero-day attacks is extremely troubling for organizations of all sizes," said Charles Kolodgy, an IDC research director, in a statement accompanying the survey. "Today's financially motivated attackers are creating customized, sophisticated malware designed to exploit unpublished application vulnerabilities in specific applications before they can be fixed." -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From brd at iimetro.com.au Wed Aug 1 16:08:08 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:08:08 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Access denied: young people and the new 'smartcard' Message-ID: <48805.1185948488@iimetro.com.au> The comments about this article make interesting reading. Same URL, following the article. Access denied: young people and the new 'smartcard' By Luke Bo'sher ABC http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/01/1993583.htm The Government's proposal of the Access Card has set an ideological and strategic position about the right to health care and age of independence. Hidden well beneath the simmering debate about privacy, technology, safety and cost, the Federal Government has made young people's access to health care more tenuous than it has ever been before. The Access Card is designed to replace all existing health care and social security cards, effectively making it essential for anyone who wants to see a doctor or receive medical treatment. This is particularly the case for young people who are very unlikely to be able to meet the cost of health care without government subsidy through Medicare. The legislation sets the benchmark for a legal right to a card at 18 years. Anyone below the age of 18 will require an exemption from the Minister to get a card. The Minister for Human Services, Senator Chris Ellison, has given assurances that he will give all young people aged 15-18 who want an Access Card the necessary exemption, consistent with the current Medicare policy. However, this guarantee cannot be made for future ministers, let alone future governments. Concentration of power The Government is proposing to substantially increase the power of one individual Minister to decide whether or not a young person has the right to independently access health care. If the minister decided to revoke his or her exemptions for each or all of those aged below 18, as it is within his or her power to do so, the impact on young people would be disastrous. Requiring all young people to be on their parents' Access Card would deny young people the opportunity to access health care independently and would compromise their right to confidentiality of treatment. Confidentiality and privacy in accessing health care is central to young people. For the past decade, an unprecedented amount of resources have been dedicated to promoting 'help seeking behaviours' and early intervention for young people in relation to health care. Particularly in the areas of mental health, family planning, sexual health and alcohol and drug treatments, confidentiality is one of the most important aspects for young people. In making the Minister for Human Services the sole decision maker in whether or not those aged 15-18 can access health care services independently, the health and wellbeing of thousands young people rests with one politician. Young people in this age group already have virtually no formal political power. This Government position reflects an ongoing desire to keep young people invisible and removed from decision making processes. Significantly, this is not just about political processes - but also about those personal decision making processes that young people have every right to be involved in. It is about the right to make decisions about your own body, health, access to income and living arrangements. Get real The Government likes to pretend that all young people live in family environments where there is no need for them to make independent decisions - "Father knows best". The Government needs to get real. The legislation should be amended to reflect the position that is already accepted as a reality in Australia by most of us today - that those aged 15-18 should be able to access healthcare independently and with the same level of confidentiality as those aged 18 and above. This position has been recognised by the medical profession's national peak body, the Australian Medical Association. The legislation should make everyone aged 15 and above eligible for a card but allow those aged 15-18 to remain on their parents' card if they so wish. This alteration would make no difference at all in the immediate period following the Access Card's introduction, but would make the Access Card legislation more transparent, accountable and robust in determining who is able to get exemptions in the future. It would shift power from one Minister to the whole Parliament and allow for any change in young people's access to health care to be scrutinised and debated with the seriousness this issue deserves. Luke Bo'sher is a policy officer at the Youth Coalition of the ACT. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From link at todd.inoz.com Wed Aug 1 20:54:52 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:54:52 +1000 Subject: [LINK] New secret search powers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200708011058.l71Aw99h021307@ah.net> At 03:04 AM 1/08/2007, Kim Holburn wrote: >http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/new-secret-search-powers/ >2007/07/31/1185647903263.html?s_cid=rss_news > >>New secret search powers >> >>Tom Allard >>August 1, 2007 >> >>POLICE and security agencies will be given unprecedented "sneak and >>peek" powers to search the homes and computers of suspects without >>their knowledge under legislation to go before Federal Parliament >>next week. >> >>The extensive powers - which also give federal police the right to >>monitor communications equipment without an interceptions warrant - >>come amid growing public disquiet about counter-terrorism powers >>following the bungled handling of the Mohamed Haneef case. Oh great and the chatroom logs they intercepted were so devastating the whole world want to hunt down Haneef - not to charge him but to say sorry for the appalling way Aus treated him. Intercepting my phone calls didn't help the Police, other than to charge me with an offence that doesn't exist (NSW SC Justice Latham July 6, 2007) >>Under the laws, officers from the federal police and other agencies >>would be able to execute "delayed notification warrants", allowing >>them to undertake searches, seize equipment and plant listening >>devices in businesses and homes. And does the law say that a citizen if guilty of an offence if they search for and disable the devices? Or will that be a case of the Government saying "It's not my device" which happened in Police V Todd 29 January 2004 :) Someone might explain how the conversation I had with my wife in the bedroom that morning was repeated by the Prosecution an hour later in the court room :) >>Police and security officers will be able to assume false >>identities to gain entry and conduct the surreptitious searches. Haven't they heard of Tresspass? Plenty V Dillion. They can assume any identity, unless "they" have an appointment they can stay in the street and use a laser listening device. I love those :) I modulate a laser in the same frequency range right back at them with 1 kHz, 5kHz and 10 kHz tones at -3 dB :) >>But the person affected by the raid does not have to be informed >>for at least six months, and can remain in the dark for 18 months >>if the warrant is rolled over. That's assuming a person is stupid enough not to know. Who in this day and age isn't monitoring their own security and privacy? I get monthly requests to do house and business security sweeps, physical, electronic and IT. >>The warrant is to be issued by the head of a police service or >>security agency without the approval of a judicial officer. It can >>also be extended for more than 18 months with the sanction of the >>minister. Ohh that's interesting. That will conflict with the Constitution! Will simply be a case of suing for Trespass and asking a constitutional question pursuant to Section 51 :) >>The lack of judicial oversight was justified by the Minister for >>Justice and Customs, David Johnston, on the grounds that a court or >>judicial officer might leak news of the warrant. And this has happened before? >>"I don't want to impugn anyone, but the security of these >>operations has to be pristine," Senator Johnston told the Herald. Gee, we are a stupid species! >>Moreover, the warrant can be issued for any offence that carries a >>prison term of 10 years or more, despite a strong recommendation >>from a bipartisan Senate committee earlier this year that it only >>be used for investigations into terrorism, organised crime and >>"offences involving death or serious injury with a maximum penalty >>of life imprisonment". Well that's most things now :) Except Drink Driving. Add that to the Immigration Character test and, oh hang on. No. Sorry, prison colony. From stephen at melbpc.org.au Thu Aug 2 04:33:21 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 18:33:21 GMT Subject: [LINK] Wi-Fi hotspot .. access accounts via VPN or SSL Message-ID: <20070801183321.DD3311640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Hi all, Quoted: "never use a Wi-Fi hotspot unless you are using VPN (virtual private networking) or SSL (secure sockets layer) to access accounts" -- Researchers: Web apps over Wi-Fi puts data at risk Security experts warn that packet sniffers can collect cookie information while a user is accessing rich Web apps over Wi-Fi By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service August 01, 2007 Users who access Google's Gmail or the Facebook social-networking site over Wi-Fi could put their accounts at risk of being hijacked, according to research from Errata Security, a computer security company It's not just those sites but any rich Web applications that exchange account information with users, including blogging sites such as Blogspot .. wrote Errata CEO (etal) in a paper. Most Web sites use encryption when passwords are entered, but because of the expense, the rest of the information exchanged between a browser and a Web site is not encrypted, they wrote in a paper presented at the Black Hat 2007 security conference in Las Vegas this week. Using a packet sniffer, which can pick up data transferred between a wireless router and a computer, it's possible to collect cookie information while a user is accessing one of those sites over Wi-Fi. Cookies consist of bits of data sent to a browser by a Web site to remember certain information about users, such as when they last logged in. Included in the cookie can be a "session identifier," which is another bit of unique information generated when people log into their accounts. By collecting cookie information and the session identifier with the packer sniffer and importing it into another Web browser, the hacker can get inside a person's account. The attacker may not, however, be able to change a person's password, since many Web 2.0 applications require a second log-in to change account information. Nonetheless, it could allow a hacker to create blog postings, read e-mail, or do other malicious activity. Meanwhile, the victim is directed to a version of the Web page they intended to visit, which Errata calls "sidejacking." There is a remedy, however. "The consequence of this is that users should never use a Wi-Fi hotspot unless they are using VPN (virtual private networking) or SSL (secure sockets layer) to access their accounts," they wrote. -- Cheers people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From brd at iimetro.com.au Thu Aug 2 09:13:00 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:13:00 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Targeting systems threaten privacy Message-ID: <33506.1186009981@iimetro.com.au> Targeting systems threaten privacy Lara Sinclair August 02, 2007 Australian IT http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22175680-15306,00.html Australian privacy groups have warned that the proliferation of behavioural targeting on the internet could breach privacy guidelines. It is expected that five of the six biggest Australian internet publishers - Sensis, Ninemsn, Fairfax, News Digital Media and Yahoo - will have behavioural targeting in operation on their sites within six months, but they are not expected to reveal the practice to users. Behavioural targeting is where a user is profiled according to their purchase habits and served relevant ads that can follow them from site to site. Privacy groups say users should be made aware of the practice to save them from being unduly influenced without their knowledge and allow them to opt in or out of the service. The Australian Privacy Foundation expects "ad-stalking" will become a flashpoint once consumers are aware of it. "(It) is one of those topics that will absolutely explode in companies' faces when people think the companies they've done a deal with have shared (their data) with others," said APF chairman Roger Clarke, an ebusiness consultant. "(People) are quite happy (to share information) provided we are informed about what it is and we believe we have consented to that usage," he said. Telstra's digital media arm Sensis will launch its system by October and is already collecting user profiles. Digital marketing chief Anthony Saines said it was the holy grail of advertising to put ads in front of people who were interested in the product, and the practice could improve sales conversions by 600 per cent. "You're never going to know individuals. You're just going to know browsers," he said. David Vaile, executive director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at the University of NSW, said ad targeting was not a "victimless activity". "In the US this has gone beyond consumer product preferences to political preferences and maybe sexual preferences," he said. "There may be advertising of gambling to people who you already know have a weakness and an inability to stop." Mr Saines said Sensis would focus on advertising products such as cars to people who had shown they were about to buy one, and subversive persuasion for contentious categories would not be allowed. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From brd at iimetro.com.au Thu Aug 2 09:25:06 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:25:06 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Bubble 2.0 Coming Soon Message-ID: <56686.1186010706@iimetro.com.au> Bubble 2.0 Coming Soon 1 August 2007 By John C. Dvorak PCMag http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2164136,00.asp Every single person working in the media today who experienced the dot-com bubble in 1999 to 2000 believes that we are going through the exact same process and can expect the exact same results?a bust. It's d?j? vu all over again. And since this moment in time is only the beginning of the cycle, the best nuttiness has yet to emerge. Nevertheless, this is not to say that a lot of nuttiness hasn't already happened. If we look closely, the 1999 dot-com bubble was nothing new. We saw all sorts of bubbles before the dot-com one. For instance, there was the CD-ROM bubble. Remember all the CD-ROM companies? Bill Gates's "Information at Your Fingertips" was the watchword. Microsoft itself started a unique division called Microsoft Home. The whole scene collapsed almost overnight. Each succeeding bubble has been worse than its predecessor. Thus nobody is actually able to spot the cycle, since it just looks like a continuum. I can assure you that after this next collapse, nobody will think of the dot-com bubble as anything other than a prelude. Before the CD-ROM bubble, pad-based computing was all the rage. Every company and a lot of start-ups were going to make this kind of computer. It was a total bust. Before that we had the software wars, when you could choose from dozens and dozens of word processors and spreadsheets. And don't forget the IBM PC clone wars in there somewhere. These all resulted in one sort of collapse or another. I think you get the idea. Each of these bubbles had a distinctive theme. For the dot-com bubble, it was e-commerce?it really should have been called the e-commerce bubble. Everything was focused on how the Internet was going to destroy all existing brick-and-mortar operations. We were told that you'd be buying sandwiches over the Internet and having them delivered the next day by FedEx. Everything was about "eyeballs" and finding ways to attract customers, whether they bought anything or not. Every article in every newspaper in the country parroted the litany as to how you'd be out of business in a year or two if you were not present on the Web in a big way. Of course, this was all crap. The current bubble, already called Bubble 2.0 to mock the Web 2.0 moniker, is harder to pin down insofar as a primary destructive theme is concerned. A number of unique initiatives, however, are in play here. Let's look at a few of the top ideas floating the new bubble. Neo-social networking. Today everything from YouTube to the local church has a social-networking angle. And this doesn't even consider the actual social-networking sites, from MySpace to LinkedIn to Facebook to even Second Life. This scene is totally out of control and will contribute to the collapse for sure. Video mania. With dozens and dozens of YouTube clones cropping up to get on the "throw money away" bandwagon, you must sense that the eventual shakeout in this space will have a negative impact. User-generated content. This idea has been around since Usenet and just keeps improving. It will make no contribution to the overall collapse except for users reporting the collapse. Mobile everything. Here is another concept that has been in play since the mid-1990s. It cannot trigger a collapse since it will never fully get off the ground, although the iPhone mania may be a bad sign of something. Ad-leveraged search. Most search engines will fail as a matter of course. This segment of the industry is mundane. It would be affected by a crash but not trigger one. Widgets and toolbars. I cannot see the widget scene going crazy, and the jury is still out on toolbars. But there is the potential for nuttiness, I think. The problem here is that these things tend to be dependent on the stability of operating systems and browsers. One bad operating-system patch and suddenly nothing works. You can come up with your own theories about the next collapse. Your guess as to the cause will be as good as mine. All I can tell you is that it's a sure thing. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From marghanita at ramin.com.au Thu Aug 2 09:50:12 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:50:12 +1000 Subject: [LINK] [Fwd: [iosn-general] APDIP e-Note 18 on Standards for Electronic Documents] Message-ID: <46B11C34.8080402@ramin.com.au> -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Wed Aug 1 12:12:28 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:12:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Fwd: VIP-L: Missed lectures accessible on screen In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4okgq1@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <61fg7n$4okgq1@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <20070801235632.064D5EBCF@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 09:17 AM 31/07/2007, Jan Whitaker wrote: >This should be of interest to a few linkers: > >>Missed lectures accessible on screen By Milanda Rout Australian IT >>- Australia, July 17, 2007 >> >>STUDENTS will be able to listen to lectures and quiz academics at home ... Not exactly a new idea. I tried out the Lectopia/iLecture System developed by the University of Western Australia at their Albany campus in 2000 . This system allows for recording digital audio and video of lectures. ANU lectures have been recorded with a digital audio system for several years. When I push the "stop" button on the podium in the lecture theatre, the digital audio is made available to the students via the web based course management system. The system now has an option for providing podcasts . The notes and slides are also provided online for some lectures, along with assignments and tutorials. There are forums for students to discuss and ask questions. In most cases the questions are answered by other students in the forum, not the staff. Some courses incorporate the forums into the assessment process, grading students on their participation. I expect this is much the same at many Australian universities and is not something they would think worth doing a media release about. The suggestion that staff at home would spend their time answering student questions shows the article is not about a real system. The ANU software engineering students have a more advanced system with software development tools and scheduling tools integrated (developed by a team of students). It is possible to provide an entire course online. The ACS does this for its postgraduate Computer Professional Education Program . The Moodle system used has features for encouraging students to contribute to the online discussion and to stop any one student dominating the discussion (a feature which might be useful on Link). But the new frontier I see is applying such tools in the classroom, to blend the online and face to face environments . 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 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Thu Aug 2 10:04:11 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:04:11 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bubble 2.0 Coming Soon In-Reply-To: <56686.1186010706@iimetro.com.au> References: <56686.1186010706@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46B11F7B.4040407@ramin.com.au> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2164136,00.asp > Each of these bubbles had a distinctive theme. For the dot-com bubble, it was e-commerce???it really should have been called the e-commerce bubble. Everything was focused on how the Internet was going to destroy all existing brick-and-mortar operations. We were told that you'd be buying sandwiches over the Internet and having them delivered the next day by FedEx. Everything was about "eyeballs" and finding ways to attract customers, whether they bought anything or not. Every article in every newspaper in the country parroted the litany as to how you'd be out of business in a year or two if you were not present on the Web in a big way. Of course, this was all crap. > > The current bubble, already called Bubble 2.0 to mock the Web 2.0 moniker, is harder to pin down insofar as a primary destructive theme is concerned. A number of unique initiatives, however, are in play here. Let's look at a few of the top ideas floating the new bubble. > > Neo-social networking. Today everything from YouTube to the local church has a social-networking angle. And this doesn't even consider the actual social-networking sites, from MySpace to LinkedIn to Facebook to even Second Life. This scene is totally out of control and will contribute to the collapse for sure. > > Video mania. With dozens and dozens of YouTube clones cropping up to get on the "throw money away" bandwagon, you must sense that the eventual shakeout in this space will have a negative impact. > > User-generated content. This idea has been around since Usenet and just keeps improving. It will make no contribution to the overall collapse except for users reporting the collapse. > > Mobile everything. Here is another concept that has been in play since the mid-1990s. It cannot trigger a collapse since it will never fully get off the ground, although the iPhone mania may be a bad sign of something. > > Ad-leveraged search. Most search engines will fail as a matter of course. This segment of the industry is mundane. It would be affected by a crash but not trigger one. > > Widgets and toolbars. I cannot see the widget scene going crazy, and the jury is still out on toolbars. But there is the potential for nuttiness, I think. The problem here is that these things tend to be dependent on the stability of operating systems and browsers. One bad operating-system patch and suddenly nothing works. > > You can come up with your own theories about the next collapse. Your guess as to the cause will be as good as mine. All I can tell you is that it's a sure thing. > > One thing they forgot to mention was just before the Dot.com bubble burst, mining exploration companies started to complain that they couldn't raise funds. Nothing new...see > > The term tulip mania (alternatively tulipomania) is used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble. M -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From rick at praxis.com.au Thu Aug 2 08:19:59 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:19:59 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Wi-Fi hotspot .. access accounts via VPN or SSL In-Reply-To: <20070801183321.DD3311640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070801183321.DD3311640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <46B1070F.4070301@praxis.com.au> stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Quoted: "never use a Wi-Fi hotspot unless you are using VPN (virtual > private networking) or SSL (secure sockets layer) to access accounts" [SNIP] > risk_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2007-08-01> [SNIP] > It's not just those sites but any rich Web applications that exchange > account information with users, including blogging sites such as > Blogspot .. wrote Errata CEO (etal) in a paper. Whew! I was worried there for a second. I thought I was at risk using email and non-rich Web apps, but I feel better now. NOT! "Rich Web apps" have nothing to do with this problem. ANY plain text Internet protocol shoveled through non-encrypted WiFi or even non-WiFi connections are at risk of being snooped. > There is a remedy, however. "The consequence of this is that users should > never use a Wi-Fi hotspot unless they are using VPN (virtual private > networking) or SSL (secure sockets layer) to access their accounts," they > wrote. I'm sure that is reassuring to the computer illiterati. has a reasonably comprehensible discussion of the problem and the talkback section offers some Real World Solutions (TM). Google for "never use a Wi-Fi hotspot unless you are using VPN" for more help on this. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas. -- Keppel Enderbery From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Thu Aug 2 11:38:34 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 11:38:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] SMH: 'Concern over how AFP got comments' Message-ID: Concern over how AFP got comments Date: August 2 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald Asher Moses http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2007/08/01/1185647979267.html FEDERAL POLICE are refusing to say how they got snippets of online conversations between Mohamed Haneef and his brother. The Herald asked the Australian Federal Police yesterday how they got the transcript of the internet conversation last month. But a spokesman refused to specify whether the snippets came from logs stored on Dr Haneef's computer or from internet-based surveillance conducted by police, citing the ongoing investigation. The chairman of the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, Dale Clapperton, said under existing laws the police would have had to obtain a "telecommunications interception" warrant to conduct internet surveillance. He said questions remained about how such a warrant was obtained. "The police do not seem to have enough information to have gotten a TI [telecommunications intercept] warrant," he said. "They didn't even have enough information to make the SIM card charge stick." Federal police are refusing to reveal the extent of their surveillance in Australia, but the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act gives police the power to monitor virtually all internet activity provided they first obtain the warrant. "Anything you do using the internet can be monitored by law enforcement agencies, it doesn't matter whether it's emails, web browsing, chat rooms, whatever," Mr Clapperton said. But under new laws to go before Federal Parliament next week, the warrant can be issued by the head of a police service or a security agency, bypassing judicial oversight. "If the police don't trust the judges, how are we supposed to trust the police?" Mr Clapperton said. Nigel Waters, chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation's policy committee, accused the Government of rushing unprecedented surveillance legislation through Parliament before the public had the chance to work out how the provisions applied to new technologies. "There is no doubt that there is significant erosion taking place in the privacy of telecommunications and internet communications," he said. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From marghanita at ramin.com.au Thu Aug 2 11:51:24 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:51:24 +1000 Subject: [LINK] [Fwd: [iosn-general] APDIP e-Note 18 on Standards for Electronic Documents] In-Reply-To: <46B11C34.8080402@ramin.com.au> References: <46B11C34.8080402@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: <46B1389C.5020102@ramin.com.au> Apparently the attachment got stripped off.. Here is the substance > This APDIP e-Note provides a brief introduction to the history of > document standards, explores the different standards for electronic > documents and details the development of OpenDocument Format for Office > Applications (ODF). It also looks at how governments worldwide have > started to adopt ODF in public administration.This APDIP e-Note provides > a brief introduction to the history of document standards, explores the > different standards for electronic documents and details the development > of OpenDocument Format for Office Applications (ODF). It also looks at > how governments worldwide have started to adopt ODF in public > administration. > > Office productivity software is extensively used to create electronic > documents, spreadsheets and presentation files. These documents are > widely shared within and across government agencies, commercial > industries, educational institutions, and across countries, cultures and > time zones. With millions of users of office productivity software, > computer literacy is now equated by many to literacy in operating a word > processor, spreadsheet or presentation application. > > The office productivity software industry has had a tumultuous history > in the last two decades, much due to harsh competitions. In order to > ??????lock?????? users to their software by making it difficult for end users to > easily read, edit and save their documents in other office productivity > software, corporations have developed electronic document formats that > are closed, proprietary and lacked adequate documentation. > > The closed nature of the documents have resulted in problems > of electronic archeology: documents created by users 10 years ago or > less cannot be opened with 100 percent fidelity in modern office > software. > > In response, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured > Information Standards (OASIS) started its work in 2002 to define an open > standard for office documents (the ODF) to ensure interoperability > between different office productivity software. > > Governments and administrative bodies have been quick to recognize the > merits of ODF and have started to integrate ODF as national policies for > document use and exchange. This APDIP e-Note provide some examples from > Australia to the US. > > Other open standards discussed in this APDIP e-Note include the > Microsoft-released Office Open XML and Adobe Systems?????? Portable Document > Format. > > Download the e-note: http://www.apdip.net/apdipenote/18.pdf > > WWW: http://www.apdip.net/news/apdipenote18 > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From lists at westnet.net.au Thu Aug 2 12:25:10 2007 From: lists at westnet.net.au (Kevin Emery (Lists)) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 10:25:10 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early Message-ID: <069301c7d4ac$59f859a0$0de90ce0$@net.au> http://www.industrysearch.com.au/news/viewrecord.aspx?id=27332 2/08/2007 - There could be national security concerns if the federal government allows the Optus-led G9 group of telcos to build a national high speed broadband network, a top ranking Telstra executive says. "Action is character. G9 does business by press releases, we (Telstra) don't." HEHEHEH Yeah right! Now what twit would say that...mmmm Burges... Yep... Phil Burgess, Telstra's group manager for communications and public policy, on Wednesday homed in on Optus' role in the G9 consortium, which is rivalling Telstra to build the fibre optic network, and highlighted its ownership. Optus is owned by the Australian and Singapore stock exchange listed Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, which is majority owned by Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singaporean government. "Why would you want somebody outside your country to control telecommunications," Dr Burgess told reporters after speaking at a Rotary Club function Melbourne. "Telecommunications is the nerve centre of a country. "One of the biggest problems we've had this year, all the telecom companies have had this year, is working with ASIO and the police and others on issues related to surveillance. "That is something which has to be an intimate relationship between the judicial authorities, the security authorities and the telecommunications company. "Do you want the government of Singapore to be at the table on that?" Asked if the broadband debate touched on national security issues, Dr Burgess said: "Of course it does." "How could you have the nerve centre of the country not touch on national security? "It goes right to the heart of national security. "It goes right to the heart of national prosperity. "It goes right to the heart of urban-rural parity. "It goes right to the heart of job creation." Dr Burgess also reiterated comments by Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo on Tuesday that the telco may shift its investment priorities elsewhere, if the broadband issue is not resolved quickly. "We have other things we can do," he said/ "We can do other things in this country we do other things outside this country." But Dr Burgess refused to elaborate on where Telstra was considering moving some $4 billion in funds originally earmarked to build the broadband network. "We're not going to be held up and have our shareholders' back pockets pillaged by the um-ing and ah-ing and indecisiveness and confusion of the government and the regulator," he said. "Action is character. G9 does business by press releases, we don't." In June, the federal government set up an expert panel to review high-speed broadband in Australia, laying the foundation for a tender process to decide which company or companies will build a fibre-optic network to service the nation's capital cities. But the panel's report will not be finalised before the federal election, expected about November - a delay that has rankled Telstra. Source: AAP NewsWire Best Regards Kevin Emery Managing Director West Australian Networks Pty Ltd, WWW: http://www.westnet.net.au Po Box 532, HILLARYS 6923 Western Australia No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.11.2/931 - Release Date: 1/08/2007 4:53 PM Checked for Virus & Spam by West Australian Networks Internet Service Providers see www.westnet.net.au From marghanita at ramin.com.au Thu Aug 2 13:01:58 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:01:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] [Fwd: [iosn-general] APDIP e-Note 18 on Standards for Electronic Documents] In-Reply-To: <46B1389C.5020102@ramin.com.au> References: <46B11C34.8080402@ramin.com.au> <46B1389C.5020102@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: <46B14926.30509@ramin.com.au> Apologies for posting to myself...but I thought some Linkers may be interested in this comment > This is one of the numerous issues of the OOOXML, because documents > embed other data/media, if that data is proprietary or patent > encumbered, then nobody will be able to fully render the document > accurately. > > The FOSS Open Standards primer covers all these issues/formats in more > detail: > > http://www.iosn.net/open-standards/foss-open-standards-primer/ Marghanita Marghanita da Cruz wrote: > Apparently the attachment got stripped off.. > Here is the substance > >> This APDIP e-Note provides a brief introduction to the history of >> document standards, explores the different standards for electronic >> >> Download the e-note: http://www.apdip.net/apdipenote/18.pdf >> >> WWW: http://www.apdip.net/news/apdipenote18 >> > > > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From lists at westnet.net.au Thu Aug 2 15:45:22 2007 From: lists at westnet.net.au (Kevin Emery (Lists)) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 13:45:22 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early Message-ID: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> http://www.industrysearch.com.au/news/viewrecord.aspx?id=27332 2/08/2007 - There could be national security concerns if the federal government allows the Optus-led G9 group of telcos to build a national high speed broadband network, a top ranking Telstra executive says. "Action is character. G9 does business by press releases, we (Telstra) don't." HEHEHEH Yeah right! Now what twit would say that...mmmm Burges... Yep... Phil Burgess, Telstra's group manager for communications and public policy, on Wednesday homed in on Optus' role in the G9 consortium, which is rivalling Telstra to build the fibre optic network, and highlighted its ownership. Optus is owned by the Australian and Singapore stock exchange listed Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, which is majority owned by Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singaporean government. "Why would you want somebody outside your country to control telecommunications," Dr Burgess told reporters after speaking at a Rotary Club function Melbourne. "Telecommunications is the nerve centre of a country. "One of the biggest problems we've had this year, all the telecom companies have had this year, is working with ASIO and the police and others on issues related to surveillance. "That is something which has to be an intimate relationship between the judicial authorities, the security authorities and the telecommunications company. "Do you want the government of Singapore to be at the table on that?" Asked if the broadband debate touched on national security issues, Dr Burgess said: "Of course it does." "How could you have the nerve centre of the country not touch on national security? "It goes right to the heart of national security. "It goes right to the heart of national prosperity. "It goes right to the heart of urban-rural parity. "It goes right to the heart of job creation." Dr Burgess also reiterated comments by Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo on Tuesday that the telco may shift its investment priorities elsewhere, if the broadband issue is not resolved quickly. "We have other things we can do," he said/ "We can do other things in this country we do other things outside this country." But Dr Burgess refused to elaborate on where Telstra was considering moving some $4 billion in funds originally earmarked to build the broadband network. "We're not going to be held up and have our shareholders' back pockets pillaged by the um-ing and ah-ing and indecisiveness and confusion of the government and the regulator," he said. "Action is character. G9 does business by press releases, we don't." In June, the federal government set up an expert panel to review high-speed broadband in Australia, laying the foundation for a tender process to decide which company or companies will build a fibre-optic network to service the nation's capital cities. But the panel's report will not be finalised before the federal election, expected about November - a delay that has rankled Telstra. Source: AAP NewsWire Best Regards Kevin Emery Managing Director West Australian Networks Pty Ltd, WWW: http://www.westnet.net.au Po Box 532, HILLARYS 6923 Western Australia No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.11.2/931 - Release Date: 1/08/2007 4:53 PM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.11.2/931 - Release Date: 1/08/2007 4:53 PM Checked for Virus & Spam by West Australian Networks Internet Service Providers see www.westnet.net.au From link at todd.inoz.com Thu Aug 2 20:53:42 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 20:53:42 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Trust - Judges, Police and Citizens Message-ID: <200708021053.l72ArqZ7030371@ah.net> http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/concern-over-how-afp-got-comments/2007/08/01/1185647979267.html But under new laws to go before Federal Parliament next week, the warrant can be issued by the head of a police service or a security agency, bypassing judicial oversight. "If the police don't trust the judges, how are we supposed to trust the police?" Mr Clapperton said. Wow, I'm not sure Dale realises what he's just said there. If the police don't trust Judges, and we don't trust the police. What do the police do when they arrest people? Not take them before judges? Beg for laws to ensure that another Haneef incident doesn't occur. I can see Guantanamo Bay Laws being created in Australia. Innocent people will be terrorised by local "authorities" who are acting in a Draconian fashion on the heresay out of context words and phrases, or selective snippets of a persons conversation - leading to "Missing Persons" reports that of course the police will deny, and waste OTHER police time on searches, or maybe there will be a 'code of silence' process whereby you local police are told "We know where X is, there is no requirement for further contact at this time." Innocent Husbands and Wives will think their partner, children, parents etc have run off and left them and don't love them any more. What an awesome world we live in. All human beings are equal, just some are more equal than others. From russell.ashdown at ashdown.net.au Thu Aug 2 21:00:53 2007 From: russell.ashdown at ashdown.net.au (Russell Ashdown) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:00:53 +1000 Subject: [LINK] SMH: 'Concern over how AFP got comments' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46B1B965.6020209@ashdown.net.au> DCS1000 (previously known as 'Echelon' and/or 'Omnivore' / 'Carnivore') my dear Roger... Oh, and let's not forget the infamous 'Narus STA 6400' See: and: Cheers, Russell Roger Clarke wrote: > Concern over how AFP got comments > Date: August 2 2007 > The Sydney Morning Herald > Asher Moses > http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2007/08/01/1185647979267.html > > FEDERAL POLICE are refusing to say how they got snippets of online > conversations between Mohamed Haneef and his brother. > > The Herald asked the Australian Federal Police yesterday how they got > the transcript of the internet conversation last month. > > But a spokesman refused to specify whether the snippets came from logs > stored on Dr Haneef's computer or from internet-based surveillance > conducted by police, citing the ongoing investigation. > > The chairman of the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers > Australia, Dale Clapperton, said under existing laws the police would > have had to obtain a "telecommunications interception" warrant to > conduct internet surveillance. > > He said questions remained about how such a warrant was obtained. "The > police do not seem to have enough information to have gotten a TI > [telecommunications intercept] warrant," he said. "They didn't even > have enough information to make the SIM card charge stick." > > Federal police are refusing to reveal the extent of their surveillance > in Australia, but the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act > gives police the power to monitor virtually all internet activity > provided they first obtain the warrant. > > "Anything you do using the internet can be monitored by law > enforcement agencies, it doesn't matter whether it's emails, web > browsing, chat rooms, whatever," Mr Clapperton said. > > But under new laws to go before Federal Parliament next week, the > warrant can be issued by the head of a police service or a security > agency, bypassing judicial oversight. > > "If the police don't trust the judges, how are we supposed to trust > the police?" Mr Clapperton said. > > Nigel Waters, chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation's policy > committee, accused the Government of rushing unprecedented > surveillance legislation through Parliament before the public had the > chance to work out how the provisions applied to new technologies. > > "There is no doubt that there is significant erosion taking place in > the privacy of telecommunications and internet communications," he said. > > From mail at ozzmosis.com Thu Aug 2 20:54:57 2007 From: mail at ozzmosis.com (andrew clarke) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 20:54:57 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Wi-Fi hotspot .. access accounts via VPN or SSL In-Reply-To: <20070801183321.DD3311640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070801183321.DD3311640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <20070802105457.GA51383@ozzmosis.com> On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 06:33:21PM +0000, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Security experts warn that packet sniffers can collect cookie information > while a user is accessing rich Web apps over Wi-Fi Yep. Or any ordinary web server where unencrypted data transfer is the norm. Which is most of them. Nothing new there... > By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service August 01, 2007 > risk_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2007-08-01> > > Users who access Google's Gmail or the Facebook social-networking site > over Wi-Fi could put their accounts at risk of being hijacked, according > to research from Errata Security, a computer security company I'm not sure about Facebook or the rest of Google, but Google Mail accounts can be used over an encrypted link using HTTPS. https://www.gmail.com/ Google also provide an encrypted POP3 service for Gmail users. From link at todd.inoz.com Thu Aug 2 22:24:14 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 22:24:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] SMH: 'Concern over how AFP got comments' In-Reply-To: <46B1B965.6020209@ashdown.net.au> References: <46B1B965.6020209@ashdown.net.au> Message-ID: <200708021225.l72CPI6i001121@ah.net> Oh please. This wasn't a DSD/Echelon moment. Gawd if it was, then the information would have been available 4 days earlier! No, the information came from the poor guys laptop chat logs, which are unencrypted and stored in plain text on his computer. No doubt the police probably discovered the laptops clock was wrong and helpfully set it to the appropriate date and time, ensuring that the evidence was accurate. Just like the names and addresses of the alleged British Terrorists written into the back of Haneefs diary, strangely not in his handwriting and strangely in the hand writing of a police officer. No surprise an interrogator dropped dead during this process. Sympathy to his family, but his passing was probably from a heart or anurism attach caused by his inability to be dishonest under the extreme pressure of being ordered to fabricate "facts" (Ok, I'm being colourful here, but I didn't say that was a fact, I said "probably" and there is no evidence to the contrary and seriously would you believe any that was! But it doesn't have to be done at that level. Judges like Justice Megan Latham in the NSW Supreme Court are great at creating judgements with findings of evidence that was never put before the court orally, in affidavit, on a video, in a submission or even as a whisper around the room. Corruption in the Australian Government(s) legal system is systemic. The problem is people are too afraid to do anything about it for fear of repercussions. Nah Echelon wasn't excited about this, too much hassle to get access to logs that if were obtained by such process would never have even rated mention in any of the processes. Why? Because SOMEONE ELSE will know about them. And lets face it, the British would have been all out there with the Chat Logs if Echelon was the source :) Note the British greatly distancing themselves from this "ongoing investigation" :) At 09:00 PM 2/08/2007, Russell Ashdown wrote: >DCS1000 (previously known as 'Echelon' and/or 'Omnivore' / >'Carnivore') my dear Roger... Oh, and let's not forget the infamous >'Narus STA 6400' > >See: > >and: > > >Cheers, > >Russell From stephen at melbpc.org.au Fri Aug 3 05:27:24 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 19:27:24 GMT Subject: [LINK] Microsoft's Flash Message-ID: <20070802192724.0C127168FB@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> At Microsoft's MIX 07 conference, the keynote was mostly about Silverlight. What is Silverlight, and why should we care about it? Officially, Silverlight "is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web." Microsoft claims: "Stunning vector-based graphics, media, text, animation, and overlays that enable seamless integration of graphics and effects into any existing Web application." >From the user's viewpoint, to enable Silverlight, you download and install a 1.4 MB plugin, and then you can view Silverlight content in IE, Firefox or Safari. >From a developer's viewpoint, once you have the tools installed, you instantiate Silverlight by including some JavaScript helper files from your HTML, and then you can display and script XAML files in your Web pages. Free Developer Tools: Microsoft cites four key benefits of Silverlight: 1. Compelling cross-platform user experiences 2. Flexible Programming Model with Collaboration Tools 3. High-quality media, low-cost delivery 4. Connected to data, servers, and services Two versions of Silverlight were announced Monday: the V1.0 beta, and the V1.1 Alpha. Again, why should we care? If you're a cynic, Silverlight just looks like Microsoft's answer to Flash. But if you like the idea of XAML-based display, or the idea of programming in managed code, then Silverlight offers a compelling model for programming the Web client. -- Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 3 08:13:04 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:13:04 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft's Flash In-Reply-To: <46B2458C.9090009@lannet.com.au> References: <20070802192724.0C127168FB@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <46B2458C.9090009@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46B256F0.7050306@ramin.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > > > stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >> > developers_1.html?source=NLC-AD&cgd=2007-08-02> >> >> At Microsoft's MIX 07 conference, the keynote was mostly about >> Silverlight. >> >> What is Silverlight, and why should we care about it? >> >> >> >> Officially, Silverlight "is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in >> for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and >> rich interactive applications for the Web." > > [...snip...] > >> >> But if you like the idea of XAML-based display, or the idea of >> programming in managed code, then Silverlight offers a compelling >> model for programming the Web client. > > ...more vulnerable crap that runs on the browser and infects the PC. > > It was interesting that in her keynote at CEBIT in Sydney in May, the Mozilla CEO said security was a key aspect of Firefox. She put up some graphs comparing Firefox and Explorer's lag time in identifying and addressing vulnerabilities. Also, following up on Stephen's earlier posting on HTML 5. > 3.14.7.1. Video and audio codecs for video elements > > User agents may support any video and audio codecs and container formats. > > User agents should support Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio, as well > as the Ogg container format. [THEORA] [VORBIS] [OGG] My stuff on Linux OGG/Theora/Video Formats is at Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Fri Aug 3 09:01:53 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:01:53 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard In-Reply-To: <7.1.0.9.0.20070725172014.01e597f8@tomw.net.au> References: <46A5F1DD.9020905@lannet.com.au> <46A6E875.7020502@ramin.com.au> <7.1.0.9.0.20070725172014.01e597f8@tomw.net.au> Message-ID: <20070802232417.9DA4C1ADC3@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 11:39 AM 26/07/2007, I wrote (was: "Re: Fwd: and it's Australia's turn on August 9"): >... using a Wiki to help prepare input on how the UK should vote on >ISO ballot on Office Open XML/OOXML ( DIS 29500) >. I have sent a message to >Standards Australia asking which committee is looking after it and >that they might do something similar (I am the ACS representative on >the Council of SA). ... I had a telephone call from SA on Wednesday to say that there was no committee considering OOXML. Instead SA are hosting a forum on the proposed Draft International Standard ISO/IEC 29500, "Information technology - Office Open XML file formats" standard in Sydney on 9 August. The Forum is limited to 30 persons and seats can be reserved by email to: michael.langdon (a) standards.org.au. Those who can not attend the forum can send comments to: alistair.tegart (a) standards.org.au Just make clear, my view as an IT professional is that there is no need to adopt OOXML as an international standard . However, I am not the nominated the Australian Computer Society expert on the relevant committee and the ACS may form a different view. 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 From lucychili at gmail.com Fri Aug 3 09:33:28 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 09:03:28 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard In-Reply-To: <20070802232417.9DA4C1ADC3@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> References: <46A5F1DD.9020905@lannet.com.au> <46A6E875.7020502@ramin.com.au> <7.1.0.9.0.20070725172014.01e597f8@tomw.net.au> <20070802232417.9DA4C1ADC3@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: On 8/3/07, Tom Worthington wrote: > Just make clear, my view as an IT professional is that there is no > need to adopt OOXML as an international standard > . > However, I am not the nominated the Australian Computer Society > expert on the relevant committee and the ACS may form a different view. Thankyou for the clarification. Janet From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 3 10:33:53 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 10:33:53 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Next, a Facebook for mum and dad Message-ID: <46B277F1.6070508@ramin.com.au> > August 02, 2007 > > BABY boomers and Gen-Xers can be flummoxed by the youth-oriented content on networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook but they still want an online social outlet to pursue their interests and interact with family and friends. > ...meanwhile > New Theatre (Sydney)'s Details > Status: Single > Zodiac Sign: Libra > Occupation: Theatre Company > Male > 74 years old > Newtown, New South Wales > Australia and > Actors Anonymous's Details > Status: In a Relationship > Here for: Networking > Hometown: Kings Cross > Zodiac Sign: Aries > Occupation: Creativity > Male > 35 years old > Sydney, New South Wales > Australia M -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 3 10:53:02 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 10:53:02 +1000 Subject: [LINK] SMH: 'Concern over how AFP got comments' In-Reply-To: <200708021225.l72CPI6i001121@ah.net> References: <46B1B965.6020209@ashdown.net.au> <200708021225.l72CPI6i001121@ah.net> Message-ID: <46B27C6E.4070401@ramin.com.au> Meanwhile in the US.... > Ever since 9/11, the Bush administration has argued for greater freedom to electronically eavesdrop on terror suspects. But this week, there is new urgency, as it pushes Congress to allow it to intercept overseas communications that are routed through the United States. That is complicated by the 30-year old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which requires prior court approval for wiretaps that have a domestic component. m Adam Todd wrote: > > Oh please. This wasn't a DSD/Echelon moment. Gawd if it was, then the > information would have been available 4 days earlier! > > No, the information came from the poor guys laptop chat logs, which are > unencrypted and stored in plain text on his computer. > > No doubt the police probably discovered the laptops clock was wrong and > helpfully set it to the appropriate date and time, ensuring that the > evidence was accurate. > > Just like the names and addresses of the alleged British Terrorists > written into the back of Haneefs diary, strangely not in his handwriting > and strangely in the hand writing of a police officer. > > No surprise an interrogator dropped dead during this process. Sympathy > to his family, but his passing was probably from a heart or anurism > attach caused by his inability to be dishonest under the extreme > pressure of being ordered to fabricate "facts" (Ok, I'm being colourful > here, but I didn't say that was a fact, I said "probably" and there is > no evidence to the contrary and seriously would you believe any that was! > > But it doesn't have to be done at that level. Judges like Justice Megan > Latham in the NSW Supreme Court are great at creating judgements with > findings of evidence that was never put before the court orally, in > affidavit, on a video, in a submission or even as a whisper around the > room. > > Corruption in the Australian Government(s) legal system is systemic. > The problem is people are too afraid to do anything about it for fear of > repercussions. > > Nah Echelon wasn't excited about this, too much hassle to get access to > logs that if were obtained by such process would never have even rated > mention in any of the processes. > > Why? Because SOMEONE ELSE will know about them. And lets face it, the > British would have been all out there with the Chat Logs if Echelon was > the source :) > > Note the British greatly distancing themselves from this "ongoing > investigation" :) > > > > At 09:00 PM 2/08/2007, Russell Ashdown wrote: >> DCS1000 (previously known as 'Echelon' and/or 'Omnivore' / >> 'Carnivore') my dear Roger... Oh, and let's not forget the infamous >> 'Narus STA 6400' >> >> See: >> >> and: >> >> >> Cheers, >> >> Russell > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From stil at stilgherrian.com Fri Aug 3 11:22:03 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:22:03 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Next, a Facebook for mum and dad In-Reply-To: <46B277F1.6070508@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: On 3/8/07 10:33 AM, "Marghanita da Cruz" wrote: >> BABY boomers and Gen-Xers can be flummoxed by the youth-oriented content on >> networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook but they still want an online >> social outlet to pursue their interests and interact with family and friends. >> > rss> I was one of a small number of bloggers who attended a special "private viewing" of iYomu, as this new site is called, on Wednesday night. I'll be posting a daily report as the site moves from beta to its launch on 13 August and beyond My comments so far: http://stilgherrian.com/internet/iyomu_social_networking/ More detailed info from another attendee: http://blogpond.com.au/2007/08/02/iyomucom-social-networking-for-grown-ups/ If anyone wants the password to enter the beta test site -- and be eligible for a US$5000 prize draw! -- please email me privately. Enjoy! Stil Disclosure: Nothing to disclose, apart from iYomu paid for the food and drinks. Their PR firm got onto me through a story that was published in Crikey. -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From stil at stilgherrian.com Fri Aug 3 11:38:58 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:38:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Elton John: close the Internet! Message-ID: Yes, it's true: http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/eltons-war-on-the-web/2007/08/02/118564804462 3.html And Wired's take: http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2007/08/elton-john-stra.html Ah, it's Friday... Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 3 11:44:39 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:44:39 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: MEGA-LITIGATION In-Reply-To: <46A95B22.9050804@ramin.com.au> References: <46A95B22.9050804@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: <46B28887.90800@ramin.com.au> something seems at odds between this article and the summing up in the C7 litigation below... > THE cost of business litigation is about to fall by millions of dollars as a result of rule changes by two of the nation's top commercial courts. > > The changes have been triggered by widespread discontent in the judiciary at the excessive cost of commercial litigation. > > It reached a crescendo with the massive C7 litigation in the Federal Court, which is estimated to have cost $200 million while generating 75,000 documents. > > The Federal Court and the NSW Supreme Court aim to put an end to the cost blow-outs by switching some of the most expensive litigation processes to computer technology. Marghanita da Cruz wrote: >> 1. THE DISPUTE >> >> 1 The heart of the dispute in this case is the complaint by ?Seven? >> (as I call the Applicants) that in May 2002 it was forced to shut down >> the business of C7 Pty Ltd (?C7?), a producer and distributor of >> sports channels for Australian pay television platforms. Seven says >> that the closure of C7?s business was forced on it because some of the >> Respondents, notably the News, PBL and Telstra parties and their >> associated corporations, engaged in anti-competitive conduct in >> contravention of ss 45 and 46 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) >> (?Trade Practices Act?), during the period from 1999 to 2001. >> >> 2. MEGA-LITIGATION >> >> 2 The case is an example of what is best described as >> ?mega-litigation?. By that expression, I mean civil litigation, >> usually involving multiple and separately represented parties, that >> consumes many months of court time and generates vast quantities of >> documentation in paper or electronic form. An invariable >> characteristic of mega-litigation is that it imposes a very large >> burden, not only on the parties, but on the court system and, through >> that system, the community. >> >> 3 Before briefly explaining the issues in the case and the outcome, I >> wish to record some of the features of this particular example of >> mega-litigation. >> >> 4 The trial lasted for 120 hearing days and took place in an >> electronic courtroom. Electronic trials have many advantages, but >> reducing the amount of documentation produced or relied on by the >> parties is not one of them. The outcome of the processes of discovery >> and production of documents in this case was an electronic database >> containing 85,653 documents, comprising 589,392 pages. Ultimately, >> 12,849 ?documents?, comprising 115,586 pages, were admitted into >> evidence. The Exhibit List would have been very much longer had I not >> rejected the tender of substantial categories of documents that the >> parties, particularly Seven, wished to have in evidence. >> >> 5 Quite apart from the evidence, the volume of written submissions >> filed by the parties was truly astonishing. Seven produced 1,556 pages >> of written Closing Submissions in Chief and 812 pages of Reply >> Submissions (not counting confidential portions of certain chapters >> and one electronic attachment containing spreadsheets which apparently >> runs for 8,900 or so pages). The Respondents managed to generate some >> 2,594 pages of written Closing Submissions between them. The parties? >> Closing Submissions were supplemented by yet further outlines, notes >> and summaries. > > > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From gdt at gdt.id.au Fri Aug 3 13:42:29 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 13:12:29 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard In-Reply-To: <46B271C0.1080508@lannet.com.au> References: <46A5F1DD.9020905@lannet.com.au> <46A6E875.7020502@ramin.com.au> <7.1.0.9.0.20070725172014.01e597f8@tomw.net.au> <20070802232417.9DA4C1ADC3@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> <46B271C0.1080508@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <1186112549.9474.13.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Fri, 2007-08-03 at 10:07 +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > Have the ACS stated what their official position is? Good question. My view, by the way, is that the national interest isn't served by ratifying OOXML as an international standard. There was a lot of national interest in having Microsoft document it's new file format, but that is amply achieved by the ECMA's publication of the OOXML specification. It would suit the national interest if Microsoft's limited patent license were less narrow, but proceeding down the international standards tracks won't made it any more broad. > It strikes me that as this is an SA forum and not an SA committee it has > no formal position within the SA determination on this matter. Last I checked it's also lacking an agenda. From wavey_one at yahoo.com Fri Aug 3 20:14:54 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 03:14:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] should .au domain names be traded? Message-ID: <970399.95421.qm@web50505.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi all, auDA's Names Policy Panel is examining whether .au names should be able to be traded, and if so, what possible scenarios could exist to enable this. The Issues Paper at http://auda.org.au/pdf/2007npp-issues-paper.pdf outlines some of the pros and cons of allowing domain name trading. The issues are addressed from point 7.15 on in the Issues Paper. The minutes of the last meeting capture the discussion in regards to this, notably, what issues were discussed. See http://auda.org.au/2007npp/2007npp-19062007/ What I would like to know is what do people on the Link list think of the idea? Should domain names be able to be traded? If not, why not? If so, should there be any restrictions apart from existing eligibility requirements? I know a couple of people on the list have made submissions, but I'm particular keen to hear on other points of view, or if these people want to reinforce their points of view! I'm happy to receive correspondence either on or off list. Regards, David PS See http://technewsreview.com.au/ for the latest on internet news around the world - domain names, governance, censorship, cybercrime, spam, privacy, internet use and more! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7 Mail has just got even bigger and better with unlimited storage on all webmail accounts. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Fri Aug 3 21:41:55 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 21:41:55 +1000 Subject: [LINK] should .au domain names be traded? In-Reply-To: <970399.95421.qm@web50505.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <970399.95421.qm@web50505.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 3:14 -0700 3/8/07, David Goldstein wrote: >auDA's Names Policy Panel is examining whether .au names should be >able to be traded, and if so, what possible scenarios could exist to >enable this. The Issues Paper at >http://auda.org.au/pdf/2007npp-issues-paper.pdf outlines some of the >pros and cons of allowing domain name trading. ... >what do people on the Link list think of the idea? I can't see any evidence of having posted my submission to the Panel to link. (Strange - I don't usually hide my light under a bushell). >Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 05:06:54 +1000 >From: Roger Clarke >Subject: Submission to AuDA Names Policy Panel > >Mr Derek Whitehead >Chair >Names Policy Panel >.au Domain Administration Limited > > Attention Jo Lim, Chief Policy Officer, auDA > >Dear Derek > > Submission to AuDA Names Policy Panel > >I have reviewed the submission by John Selby of Macquarie >University, and strongly support it. > >I would add one further point. > >Allocating active names directly within .au would create an enormous >amount of additional contention over short names and acronyms. It >would not only re-open many old wounds, but also create new >conflicts. > >For example, ACS is *at least* .com: Advanced Client Services, >Australian Christian Services, Associated Computer Solutions, >.org/.asn: Australian Computer Society, Australian Cinematographers >Society, Aged and Community Services, Australian Cancer Society, >Australian Coastal Society, .gov: Australian Customs Service, and >.edu: Australian Correspondence Schools. (Those are all real, not >made up; and there are plenty more to choose from). > >In general, corporations have far greater power than small >businesses and non-profit organisations, and hence corporations >would win most battles, in some cases at considerable cost to the >smaller organisations. (The squelching of Virgin Helicopters by >Richard Branson's company is a lesson that needs to be remembered). > >If AuDA were to proceed with this ill-advised idea, then a >complementary design feature would be essential. This would provide >something similar to Wikipedia 'disambiguation' pages: the owner of >a .au page would be obliged by the terms of contract to >provide an initial page containing an index of any secondary links >that had been accepted for registration to the same domain-name. > >Using John Selby's example, if the owner of the whitegoods business >gained the rights to whirlpool.au, then the first page encountered >by the user would not be the whirlpool home-page, but instead a page >along the lines of: > > This is the home-page of > The full page will be displayed in 15 seconds, > or you can click here to go directly to it > > If you are looking for another organisation, > the following registrations also exist: > > - LINK:whirlpool.net.au - > - LINK:whirlpool.org.au - > - ... > > This service is provided under AuDA guidelines > >Another approach would be to require the owner to display on their >home-page a prominent display and link along the lines of FIND OTHER >ORGANISATIONS WITH SIMILAR NAMES. But this alternative would be far >from satisfactory to any of the parties. > >AuDA's policy re acceptance of registrations for secondary entries >would need to be liberal and practical. It would need to accept not >only any organisation that gains a registration under the relevant >policies applicable to any .au 2TLD, but also any organisation that >*would* gain such a registration if the relevant domain-name had not >already been assigned. > >Hence Virgin Helicopters, which it appears no longer owns any >virgin.xxx.au domain-name, would be accepted for registration for >the virgin.au domain. > >Would you please accept this as a formal submission, despite its >brevity and ASCII formatting. > >Regards -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From stephen at melbpc.org.au Fri Aug 3 22:47:09 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 12:47:09 GMT Subject: [LINK] Microsoft's Flash Message-ID: <20070803124709.115A216FA7@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> At 08:13 AM 3/08/2007, Marghanita writes: Regarding Microsoft's Howard writes: >> ...more vulnerable crap that runs on the browser and infects the PC. After the recent announcement of Silverlight by Microsoft at their Mix event in Vegas, Miguel de Icaza galvanised his team of developers in the Mono group at Novell to create a Linux implementation, called 'Moonlight'. They achieved this in 21 Days. > User agents should support Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio, > as well as the Ogg container format. [THEORA] [VORBIS] [OGG] > > > My stuff on Linux OGG/Theora/Video Formats is at > > Cheers people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 4 04:18:52 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 18:18:52 GMT Subject: [LINK] Particle Emission Characteristics of Printers Message-ID: <20070803181852.6CE6916FAD@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Hmm Of the .. "40% of the printers that were emitters, 27% were classed as high submicrometer particle emitters" School printers may pose health risk. Harmful particle emissions found in study of several common laser printers .. According to a recently published study, some commonly used printers are emitting toner particles. From eSchool News staff. August 3, 2007?Some of the laser printers used in classrooms, dorms, and school administrative offices could pose serious health risks as a result of the harmful emission of toner particles, according to a study by Australian researchers. According to the study, released Aug. 1 by the Queensland Department of Public Works .. Environ. Sci. Technol., ASAP Article 10.1021 Web Release Date: August 1, 2007 Copyright ? 2007 American Chemical Society Particle Emission Characteristics of Office Printers Congrong He, Lidia Morawska and Len Taplin. International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD and Queensland Department of Public Works, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia Received / Revised / Accepted June 27, 2007 Abstract: In modern society, printers are widely used in the office environment. This study investigated particle number and PM2.5 emissions from printers .. The monitoring of particle characteristics in a large open-plan office showed that particles generated by printers can significantly (p = 0.01) affect the submicrometer particle number concentration levels in the office .. . 3.2. Printer Emission Investigation: Following the above findings, an investigation into printer emissions in the building was conducted. Based on the ratio of particle concentrations measured immediately after the printer printed one page, compared to the background office concentrations, the investigated printers were catalogued into four different classes, in terms of their particle emission levels, including: non-emitters (ratio 1); low emitters (ratio >1 and 5), medium emitters (ratio >5 and 10); and high emitters (ratio >10). A total of 62 different printers were investigated, including various models from CANON, HP COLOR LaserJet, HP LaserJet, RICOH, and TOSHIBA. Table 1 presents a summary of the results of the printer emission investigations, including printer brand and name, and the class of emissions. It can be seen that 37 of the printers were non-emitters, 6 were low, 2 were medium, and 17 were high emitters. Overall, 60% of the investigated printers were non-emitters and of the 40% that were emitters, 27% were classed as high submicrometer particle emitters. It can also be seen that the same model of a printer (in this case the HP LaserJet 5) can act as either a non-emitter or a high emitter, and further investigation should be conducted for this phenomena.. In summary, the chamber measurements confirmed that particle emissions start immediately after the printer starts operating, and they showed that in general, size distributions of the particles generated by the printer are monodisperse. They also showed that particle number and size distributions vary.. Table One: -- cheers people Stephen Loosley Victoria, australia From ivan at itrundle.com Sat Aug 4 08:40:33 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 08:40:33 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft's Flash In-Reply-To: <20070803124709.115A216FA7@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070803124709.115A216FA7@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <79F1594C-F45C-4723-9E8A-A98490848486@itrundle.com> On 03/08/2007, at 12:47 PM, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > At 08:13 AM 3/08/2007, Marghanita writes: > > Regarding Microsoft's Howard writes: > >>> ...more vulnerable crap that runs on the browser and infects the PC. > > After the recent announcement of Silverlight by Microsoft at their Mix > event in Vegas, Miguel de Icaza galvanised his team of developers > in the > Mono group at Novell to create a Linux implementation, called > 'Moonlight'. > They achieved this in 21 Days. opensource/> > > > It'll all end in tears. I can't see any reason why either Flash or Silverlight, or Moonlight in 21 days, will get any real traction. The web developers that I talk to and lists that I subscribe to are all seeking ways of achieving flash-like effects without using plug- ins, proprietary or otherwise. Partly driven by accessibility, and partly by the desire to use open standards. Take a look at Apple's American website for how it's possible to implement lots of useful (and not so useful) - and flashy - code without resorting to Flash/Silverlight. I'm not suggesting that javascript has all of the answers (and it has some problems, too), but it's got a better long-term future, if web developers have a say in it. iT From georgebray at gmail.com Sat Aug 4 10:29:59 2007 From: georgebray at gmail.com (George Bray) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 10:29:59 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Cringely on US Broadband Competition Message-ID: <635bd2180708031729t2ae884e7n549a1d93d48cb273@mail.gmail.com> Cringely laments the effectiveness of the US broadband industry, compared with cheap fibre to the home offerings in Japan. "Game Over" U.S. broadband will need a miracle to become competitive again after years of bad policy and distraction. -- George Bray - University of Canberra, Australia From ivan at itrundle.com Sat Aug 4 11:48:42 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 11:48:42 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft's Flash In-Reply-To: <46B3D223.70001@lannet.com.au> References: <20070803124709.115A216FA7@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <79F1594C-F45C-4723-9E8A-A98490848486@itrundle.com> <46B3D223.70001@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <530A9987-942D-48CB-B88F-06BAB4A915E0@itrundle.com> On 04/08/2007, at 11:10 AM, Howard Lowndes wrote: >> Take a look at Apple's American website for how it's possible to >> implement lots of useful (and not so useful) - and flashy - code >> without resorting to Flash/Silverlight. > > ....it uses a Quicktime plugin - which is proprietary - so where is > the advantage? It does to display movies, but the UI and navigation no longer relies on Flash, or any other plugin. Try http://www.apple.com/mac/ as an example. Clicking and beginning to type in the search box gives dynamic search results, hovering over right-sidebar gives instant display. All using CSS and javascript. The point that I was trying to make is that it's possible to enhance the user experience without resorting to Flash or Silverlight. How well does Flash/Silverlight work for those who don't have/don't use plugins? Or for people with handicaps? From my experience in web delivery and UI development, Flash is a nightmare with inconsistent results and unpredictable in function and output. It also confuses the hell out of anyone over 30. But it's great for packaging some games, or mindless eye-candy. iT From sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au Sat Aug 4 12:18:34 2007 From: sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au (steve jenkin) Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 12:18:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early In-Reply-To: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> Message-ID: <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> Kevin Emery (Lists) wrote on 2/8/07 3:45 PM: Did no-one else catch the irony of a Foreign National in charge of one of our largest public companies (in fact, part of a Troika) banging on about the dangers of having Foreign Nationals in charge?? Why aren't the media all over this?? - If he's right, then he's indicted himself and the Three Amigos. - If he's wrong, then what is he doing in that job? Or are we so close to being the 51st state, that he and we can't distinguish between Aus & the USA? > http://www.industrysearch.com.au/news/viewrecord.aspx?id=27332 > > 2/08/2007 - There could be national security concerns if the federal > government allows the Optus-led G9 group of telcos to build a national high > speed broadband network, a top ranking Telstra executive says. > > > > Phil Burgess, .... > > "Why would you want somebody outside your country to control > telecommunications," > > "How could you have the nerve centre of the country not touch on national > security? > > "It goes right to the heart of national security. > > > Source: AAP NewsWire > > Best Regards > > Kevin Emery > Managing Director > West Australian Networks Pty Ltd, > WWW: http://www.westnet.net.au > Po Box 532, HILLARYS 6923 Western Australia > -- Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist. 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sjenkin From link at todd.inoz.com Sat Aug 4 15:03:35 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 15:03:35 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early In-Reply-To: <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> Message-ID: <200708040503.l7453oap000938@ah.net> At 12:18 PM 4/08/2007, steve jenkin wrote: >Kevin Emery (Lists) wrote on 2/8/07 3:45 PM: > >Did no-one else catch the irony of a Foreign National in charge of one >of our largest public companies (in fact, part of a Troika) banging on >about the dangers of having Foreign Nationals in charge?? > >Why aren't the media all over this?? >- If he's right, then he's indicted himself and the Three Amigos. >- If he's wrong, then what is he doing in that job? > >Or are we so close to being the 51st state, that he and we can't >distinguish between Aus & the USA? We're a prison colony. It doesn't matter what happens here as long as it doesn't affect the rest of the world. If it does, then the troops will be sent in and we'll be lined up with our hands on our heads. From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 4 19:21:23 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 19:21:23 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early In-Reply-To: <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> Message-ID: <61fg7n$4qrau5@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 12:18 PM 4/08/2007, steve jenkin wrote: >distinguish between Aus & the USA? Didn't you know? AUS is an acronym for A United State. ;-) But yes, I did think it was a bit rich for him to be talking about 'foreign owners'. There are still quite a few of those of his own company, although limited by the legislation. Here's a question for you. How does the govt intend to make Telstra keep the CDMA network operating? Wasn't there a little thing called a 'privatisation' not long ago? Is the threat that Howard/Coonan will 'nationalise' the company? Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From georgebray at gmail.com Sat Aug 4 21:41:03 2007 From: georgebray at gmail.com (George Bray) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 21:41:03 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft's Flash In-Reply-To: <20070802192724.0C127168FB@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070802192724.0C127168FB@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <635bd2180708040441p5cd47764ofe0cb31c1a3ae3b4@mail.gmail.com> On 8/3/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Again, why should we care? If you're a cynic, Silverlight just looks like > Microsoft's answer to Flash. Actually, it's Microsoft's answer to Adobe's AIR, a conflagration of Flash, Flex and their own scripting environment and browser plugin. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/ The sad thing is that both of them will try to be "the platform", but neither will be ubiquitous, and both will be buggy resource hogs, badly implemented in all browsers for many years to come. Let's not discuss the new wave of security vulnerabilities they will bring. Ivan's right, there will be tears. As history has told us, those trying to implement these fantastically complex environments first will be the first to cry. George Web 0.5 Evangelist From link at todd.inoz.com Sat Aug 4 22:29:13 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:29:13 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4qrau5@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <61fg7n$4qrau5@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <200708041229.l74CTp1N010853@ah.net> At 07:21 PM 4/08/2007, you wrote: >At 12:18 PM 4/08/2007, steve jenkin wrote: >>distinguish between Aus & the USA? > >Didn't you know? AUS is an acronym for A United State. ;-) ROFL! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH! Oh gawd wish I'd had that one last night when I went out! You are so funny! >But yes, I did think it was a bit rich for him to be talking about >'foreign owners'. There are still quite a few of those of his own >company, although limited by the legislation. Pffft, and how is this different? Australia is made up of foreign people and now the Fed Government is taking away the lands from families in the North yet again. They say history repeats every 200 years or so :) >Here's a question for you. How does the govt intend to make Telstra >keep the CDMA network operating? Wasn't there a little thing called >a 'privatisation' not long ago? Is the threat that Howard/Coonan >will 'nationalise' the company? Me? Personally? Ha! No, be interesting to see others opinions on this. I don't think they can. Although the legislation relating to Telstra from an infrastructure requirement hasn't changed :) And of course now being freed of Telstra as a major shareholder the Government can now put money into whatever infrastructure and whatever companies it desires. As is currently seen with the Optus Broadband fiasco and Telstra taking the Minister to the Federal Court. I guess when you loose your major Government shareholder, you have to expect to be treated as an outsider :) Telstra enjoyed 15 years of funding from the Government coffers whilst other telcos suffered in being set up. I'm surprised to be honest that no one tested the Constitutional requirement that Government not operate or be a majority shareholder of a competing commercial enterprise. This was by the Government Printer shut down many years ago. It was very cheap and more and more people were starting to use it at the expense of other suburban business printers. Eventually it become a major political issue. From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sun Aug 5 02:51:01 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 16:51:01 GMT Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early Message-ID: <20070804165101.3863E164DB@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> At 12:18 PM 4/08/2007, Steve writes: > Kevin writes on 2/8/07 3:45 PM: > >> Did no-one else catch the irony of a Foreign National in charge of one >> of our largest public companies (in fact, part of a Troika) banging on >> about the dangers of having Foreign Nationals in charge?? Yes .. it's astonishing .. get rid of the idiot, and his whole team. As an aside, I understand the chief rival for Trujerko when he got the job was a very talented Australian Telstra person, whom has now left the company :-( Is it foolish to hope that Telstra will ever again work WITH the Ausssie Government Communications Minister, and help to build a better Australia? Telstra, Coonan to slug it out in court By Michael Sainsbury and Jennifer Hewett August 04, 2007 12:00am IN an escalation of its acrimonious battle with the federal Government, Telstra is taking Communications Minister Helen Coonan to court. The proceedings in the Federal Court, which began yesterday, centre on Senator Coonan's recent decision to give nearly $1billion to Telstra's main rival, Singtel Optus, to improve regional broadband services. The move comes after attacks on the Government over the past week by Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie, chief executive Sol Trujillo and regulatory chief Phil Burgess. In what is essentially a fishing expedition, Telstra wants the court to force Senator Coonan to hand over documents explaining how this decision was made. The action is the most personal yet in the poisonous relationship between the telco and the minister. A spokesman said Telstra was unaware of any precedent for its actions. Senator Coonan said: "The fact that no one can hide from is that Telstra put in a bid for funding; it was independently assessed and then soundly beaten by a superior bid from Opel. "According to Telstra's own admission, its bid would have covered only 250,000 under-served premises, less than half that covered by Opel." "This is just a case of an ordinary bid being blown out of the water by an outstanding bid and the loser not happy with the umpire's decision." > Why aren't the media all over this?? > - If he's right, then he's indicted himself and the Three Amigos. > - If he's wrong, then what is he doing in that job? > > Or are we so close to being the 51st state, that he and we can't > distinguish between Aus & the USA? >-- > http://www.industrysearch.com.au/news/viewrecord.aspx?id=27332 > > 2/08/2007 - There could be national security concerns if the federal > government allows the Optus-led G9 group of telcos to build a national > high speed broadband network, a top ranking Telstra executive says. > > Phil Burgess, .... > > "Why would you want somebody outside your country to control > telecommunications," > > "How could you have the nerve centre of the country not touch on national > security? > > "It goes right to the heart of national security. > > > Source: AAP NewsWire > > Best Regards > > Kevin Emery > Managing Director > West Australian Networks Pty Ltd, > WWW: http://www.westnet.net.au > Po Box 532, HILLARYS 6923 Western Australia > >-- > Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist. > 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) > PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA > sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sjenkin Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From cas at taz.net.au Sun Aug 5 09:08:28 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 09:08:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early In-Reply-To: <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> Message-ID: <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 12:18:34PM +1000, steve jenkin wrote: > Did no-one else catch the irony of a Foreign National in charge of one > of our largest public companies (in fact, part of a Troika) banging on > about the dangers of having Foreign Nationals in charge?? it was the first thing i thought when i heard it. the second was "that was one of the many reasons why telstra shouldnt have been privatised". craig -- craig sanders Linux: The OS people choose without $200,000,000 of persuasion. -- Mike Coleman From david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au Sun Aug 5 16:39:08 2007 From: david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au (David Boxall) Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:39:08 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] In-Reply-To: <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> On Sun, Aug 05, 2007 at 9:08 AM Craig Sanders wrote: > On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 12:18:34PM +1000, steve jenkin wrote: >> Did no-one else catch the irony of a Foreign National in charge of one >> of our largest public companies (in fact, part of a Troika) banging on >> about the dangers of having Foreign Nationals in charge?? > > it was the first thing i thought when i heard it. the second was "that was > one of the many reasons why telstra shouldnt have been privatised". Let me tell you a story:- 18 July: phone line damage reported to Telstra. 19 July: temporary repair effected, leaving wiring clipped together in the bottom of a trench, protected by plastic bags. 26 July: a phone call to Telstra faults reveals that the job has been closed off and no follow-up organised. Follow-up arranged. 27 July: A linesman arrives, looks at the mess, says something about how it can be permanently repaired, then leaves. 2 August: a phone call to Telstra faults reveals that the job has been closed off and no follow-up organised. Appointment made for the following day. 4 August: a phone call to Telstra faults elicits the response that a permanent repair was effected by reprogramming the ISDN terminal adapter. A quick look in the trench reveals the same mess, but it rained on the 3rd so it's looking a bit soggy. Needless to say, the job has been closed off. I do my best angry customer act. Over the past ten months, my service has been out of action four times. Telstra has shown that they will go to extraordinary lengths to claim exemptions from legislated obligations (OK; there was one natural disaster, but no excuse is infinite and Energy Australia's performance put Telstra to shame). If they can get away with it, Telstra will always claim that work can't be done until a date at least two weeks in the future. From my experience, I have to declare the commercial experiment a failure. The privatised Telstra has demonstrated that it is not a fit custodian of the nation's telecommunications infrastructure. It's time for compulsory resumption of the infrastructure into public ownership. -- David Boxall | "Cheer up" they said. | "Things could be worse." | So I cheered up and, | Sure enough, things got worse. | --Murphy's musing From jwhit at janwhitaker.com Sun Aug 5 18:04:58 2007 From: jwhit at janwhitaker.com (Jan Whitaker) Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 18:04:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] rant - online shopping websites Message-ID: <61fg7n$4r331l@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Linkers, I thought I'd do some price comparison between the big two before going out for my groceries this week. Wow, what a shocking situation! Coles is where I started. It's full of js and its shopping area has FIVE frames. What a disaster. It has flashing pictures, instructions to use the Browse Aisles area, which is nowhere to be seen. The left column frame words run 'under' the central frame, so you can't read them without a horizontal scroll. Wait -- I went back to the beginning and the Browse Aisles had disappeared after I had selected a different button, funnily enough, the first one on the list called My Shop. Once I found that, it is pretty cool. Provides the per unit price on some items without me having to do the division in my head. [but given that it's not based on the store prices, there is more to this story as I found out] Safeway is interesting. No frames, but not the whole product line. For example, search for toilet paper, and the returned result is a holder, not the paper. Coles has 56 choices. Then I went to the product search screen which allows you to put in multiple products (at least according to the instructions). Put in toilet paper, tea and cheese. The only result--you guessed it--toilet paper holder. They don't sell tea online? Pitiful. Wait -- there is a drop down box! And there is the cheese and tea. No earl grey, though. [found on the Coles result list] The cheese list is interesting. Includes every instance of the word, including dog and cat food varieties. Adding 'tasty' helped, but not the price! Home Brand Tasty 1kg block is $8.12. In the shop it's around $6. That's a 25% markup. Now, while I've been scoping out the competition, the Coles 'session' logged out and is asking me to log in to resume shopping. I didn't log in in the first place, but it's evidently put a cookie somewhere because even my backup commands are sending me off to the same login screen. I feel like saying several naughty words that I'm thinking now. I was able to go back to the very beginning of the session and get the browse icons back. OK, back to the cheese, Coles' brand is even higher - $8.63. Then there is this little thing called a Service Fee and Redelivery fee. They are listed on the FAQ, except the embedded link to them doesn't work. If you didn't know HTML, you might think they didn't want the prospective customer to read that bit. I just clicked on the closest one that worked and scrolled to the right spot. That little puppy is an extra $8-$15. Redelivery is $10. Safeway is similar, with $15.90 their top level. So, can't do price comparison of store prices, costs a bomb, and has design problems. Thank goodness I'm mobile and not reliant on this. /rant/ Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From georgebray at gmail.com Sun Aug 5 21:13:21 2007 From: georgebray at gmail.com (George Bray) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 21:13:21 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] In-Reply-To: <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> Message-ID: <635bd2180708050413g6f01e577sb80d738b3b2f3246@mail.gmail.com> On 8/5/07, David Boxall wrote: >It's time for compulsory resumption of the infrastructure into public ownership. That sounds like "on just terms". Tell him he's dreaming. Maybe we need Bud Tingwell to sort out the Telstra mess. g Nostalgia enclosed: http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/01/28/castle_wideweb__430x293.jpg From kauer at biplane.com.au Sun Aug 5 22:29:10 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:29:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] OFF TOPIC: Where does the phrase "purple pissing" come from? Message-ID: <1186316950.5803.43.camel@karl> It's hugely off topic, but a group so eclectic as Link may succeed where all my Google mojo failed: Where does the term "purple pissing" come from? It was famously used by General Patton to refer to the Japanese. It is used in the play "Dimboola", too, where one of the characters refers to a "purple-pissing Protestant". I've found it used to insult many other groups and individuals, but apart from discovering that there is a variety of plum called the "purple pissing plum" I am no closer to finding out where it comes from or what (if anything) it *means*. Even without a meaning, I'd be interested in pointers to its earliest use. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From scott at doc.net.au Sun Aug 5 22:48:10 2007 From: scott at doc.net.au (Scott Howard) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 22:48:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] OFF TOPIC: Where does the phrase "purple pissing" come from? In-Reply-To: <1186316950.5803.43.camel@karl> References: <1186316950.5803.43.camel@karl> Message-ID: <20070805124810.GA8307@milliways.doc.net.au> On Sun, Aug 05, 2007 at 10:29:10PM +1000, Karl Auer wrote: > It's hugely off topic, but a group so eclectic as Link may succeed where > all my Google mojo failed: Very much off topic, but... > Where does the term "purple pissing" come from? It was famously used by It's a reference to the use of Gentian Violet in order to treat various venereal diseases. Gentian Violet is also used as a purple die. I'll leave it to you to put 2 and 2 together... :) Scott From jwhit at janwhitaker.com Mon Aug 6 09:29:46 2007 From: jwhit at janwhitaker.com (Jan Whitaker) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:29:46 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer Message-ID: <61fg7n$4r9pjo@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Interesting article in the Age today: http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/hard-to-get-analog-aussies-over-digital-divide/2007/08/05/1186252543127.html Hard to get analog Aussies over TV digital divide Ross Honeywill August 6, 2007 Basic point: it's a digital barrier, not a divide, and moving the turn-off date doesn't solve it. It's a different perspective than we normally take on Link. Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Mon Aug 6 09:47:46 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:47:46 +1000 Subject: [LINK] hCalendar Microformat in Moodle Courseware System? Message-ID: <20070806000330.B239E16339@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Perhaps someone could try my first attempt at hCalendar and let me know if it is syntactically correct (Login as Guest): ? hCalendar is a microformat for embedding event details in web pages. The calendar function in the Moodle courseware system doesn't have hCalendar built in. So I used hCalendar creator to mark up the date, time and other details. I then pasted that into the Moodle editor. Details at: . The Microformats idea of embedding formatted data in ordinary web pages is a bit of a cludge but seems a good idea, if we have systems to create and read the data. 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 From link at todd.inoz.com Mon Aug 6 10:02:43 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:02:43 +1000 Subject: [LINK] rant - online shopping websites In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4r331l@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <61fg7n$4r331l@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <200708060012.l760C7Qp020271@ah.net> At 06:04 PM 5/08/2007, Jan Whitaker wrote: >Linkers, I thought I'd do some price comparison between the big two >before going out for my groceries this week. Wow, what a shocking >situation! Coles is where I started. It's full of js and its >shopping area has FIVE frames. Jan, this is why we gave up on Home Delivery Grocery Shopping a long long time ago. Rarely are the prices even comparable. The time you spend online going round the process of selecting and item, then a qty and then going through the confirmation process is longer than me ducking up to the shop, going to the shelf, loading my trolly and checking out. ALDI opened and the online prices are generally 35-60% higher, and now we have a coles and a wollies with an ALDI all in the same building the price war is on. Our grocery bill has dropped 13% the last fortnight and my ALDI manager tells me expect even better pricing and special deals. I pity however the old Green Grocer who was pushed out of the local market by Wollies under cutting their prices every time. Although anyone with intelligence and a lust for quality food bought from the grocer he was compelled by market demand to drop his prices to avoid people taking a lower quality for lower price. Anyway, online shopping is for those who have a psychological belief that it's better. From link at todd.inoz.com Mon Aug 6 09:57:35 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:57:35 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] In-Reply-To: <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> Message-ID: <200708060012.l760C7Qn020271@ah.net> Log a formal complaint in the, um, well it use to be called CICERO, but I incremented the complaint count too much they wanted to start again :) Also make a complaint to the TIO :) It costs them bucks :) BTW Telstra is not the "custodian" of the network infrastructure, it owns it. If it were a custodian, then the infrastructure could be given or transferred to the management of anyone. Sadly Australians voted for the Sale of Telstra and the Infrastructure into private hands. So we only have ourselves to blame. (Except me, I didn't cast a vote in the last Fed Election, there wasn't anyone I could vote for with the confidence of being represented and my vote should I have cast it would have made no difference.) At 04:39 PM 5/08/2007, David Boxall wrote: >On Sun, Aug 05, 2007 at 9:08 AM Craig Sanders wrote: >>On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 12:18:34PM +1000, steve jenkin wrote: >>>Did no-one else catch the irony of a Foreign National in charge of one >>>of our largest public companies (in fact, part of a Troika) banging on >>>about the dangers of having Foreign Nationals in charge?? >> >>it was the first thing i thought when i heard it. the second was "that was >>one of the many reasons why telstra shouldnt have been privatised". >Let me tell you a story:- >18 July: phone line damage reported to Telstra. >19 July: temporary repair effected, leaving wiring clipped together >in the bottom of a trench, protected by plastic bags. >26 July: a phone call to Telstra faults reveals that the job has >been closed off and no follow-up organised. Follow-up arranged. >27 July: A linesman arrives, looks at the mess, says something about >how it can be permanently repaired, then leaves. >2 August: a phone call to Telstra faults reveals that the job has >been closed off and no follow-up organised. Appointment made for >the following day. >4 August: a phone call to Telstra faults elicits the response that a >permanent repair was effected by reprogramming the ISDN terminal >adapter. A quick look in the trench reveals the same mess, but it >rained on the 3rd so it's looking a bit soggy. Needless to say, the >job has been closed off. I do my best angry customer act. > >Over the past ten months, my service has been out of action four times. >Telstra has shown that they will go to extraordinary lengths to >claim exemptions from legislated obligations (OK; there was one >natural disaster, but no excuse is infinite and Energy Australia's >performance put Telstra to shame). If they can get away with it, >Telstra will always claim that work can't be done until a date at >least two weeks in the future. > > From my experience, I have to declare the commercial experiment a > failure. The privatised Telstra has demonstrated that it is not a > fit custodian of the nation's telecommunications > infrastructure. It's time for compulsory resumption of the > infrastructure into public ownership. From pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au Mon Aug 6 10:55:59 2007 From: pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au (Paul Brooks) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:55:59 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4qrau5@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <61fg7n$4qrau5@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <46B6719F.7020107@layer10.com.au> Jan Whitaker wrote: > > Here's a question for you. How does the govt intend to make Telstra > keep the CDMA network operating? Wasn't there a little thing called a > 'privatisation' not long ago? Is the threat that Howard/Coonan will > 'nationalise' the company? A License Condition, probably broadly similar to the one that mandated replacement of the AMPS system with a digital equivalent. All holders of a carrier license have to comply with license conditions, regardless of ownership structure. Carrier Licence Conditions (Telstra Corporation Limited) Declaration 1997 From lealink at viking.org.au Mon Aug 6 11:26:01 2007 From: lealink at viking.org.au (Lea de Groot) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 11:26:01 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] In-Reply-To: <200708060012.l760C7Qn020271@ah.net> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> <200708060012.l760C7Qn020271@ah.net> Message-ID: <20070806112601347012.e732b612@viking.org.au> On Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:57:35 +1000, Adam Todd wrote: > (Except me, I didn't cast a vote in the last Fed Election, there > wasn't anyone I could vote for with the confidence of being > represented and my vote should I have cast it would have made no > difference.) Well, really, you should have attended the polling booth anyway and voted informally. Not marked the ballot in any way that could have been interpreted as a vote and written on it what you thought of the candidates. Everyone (well, perhaps not everyone here ;)) thinks an e-voting system will sing and dance, but it will lose an important facet of the current paper system - Human scrutineers. These people not only check that the vote is being counted correctly but also view the physical ballots, and will see a trend such as 'No Dams', etc and will report back to their party (because the majority are from a party) on what The Peepul want. See, there is a point to voting informally. Although I can almost always find someone I want to vote against :) Lea -- Lea de Groot Brissie From wavey_one at yahoo.com Mon Aug 6 12:50:50 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 19:50:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] Message-ID: <680832.1009.qm@web50512.mail.re2.yahoo.com> On electronic voting, I've put some stories on my website, but in short: 1. "This year's federal election will be the first to engage electronic voting when blind or vision impaired people will be able to vote at 29 locations across Australia. 2. The California Secretary of State moved strongly on Friday to corral electronic-voting problems found in independent tests conducted on machines previously certified for use in that state. See http://technewsreview.com.au/cat.php?cat=6 for links to these stories... David ----- Original Message ---- From: Lea de Groot To: link at anu.edu.au Sent: Monday, 6 August, 2007 11:26:01 AM Subject: Re: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] On Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:57:35 +1000, Adam Todd wrote: > (Except me, I didn't cast a vote in the last Fed Election, there > wasn't anyone I could vote for with the confidence of being > represented and my vote should I have cast it would have made no > difference.) Well, really, you should have attended the polling booth anyway and voted informally. Not marked the ballot in any way that could have been interpreted as a vote and written on it what you thought of the candidates. Everyone (well, perhaps not everyone here ;)) thinks an e-voting system will sing and dance, but it will lose an important facet of the current paper system - Human scrutineers. These people not only check that the vote is being counted correctly but also view the physical ballots, and will see a trend such as 'No Dams', etc and will report back to their party (because the majority are from a party) on what The Peepul want. See, there is a point to voting informally. Although I can almost always find someone I want to vote against :) Lea -- Lea de Groot Brissie _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link at mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7 Mail has just got even bigger and better with unlimited storage on all webmail accounts. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From wavey_one at yahoo.com Mon Aug 6 19:28:33 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 02:28:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer Message-ID: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> If our government had the foresight of the Brits on digital television, then maybe more people would be keen, but then they have their problems too. When you compare Freeview - http://freeview.co.uk/ - with what Howard outlined below, then it's no wonder so few Australians take up digital television... David ----- Original Message ---- From: Howard Lowndes Cc: link at anu.edu.au Sent: Monday, 6 August, 2007 2:52:02 PM Subject: Re: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer Jan Whitaker wrote: > Interesting article in the Age today: > http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/hard-to-get-analog-aussies-over-digital-divide/2007/08/05/1186252543127.html > > > Hard to get analog Aussies over TV digital divide > Ross Honeywill > August 6, 2007 > > Basic point: it's a digital barrier, not a divide, and moving the > turn-off date doesn't solve it. It's a different perspective than we > normally take on Link. I guess that I am one who has jumped the digital hurdle, or am at least still airborne and landing on the far side. I have a very old TV that has been in the repair shop twice in its life already and I guess that its next trip will bypass to the tip, and having just had to replace a geriatric refrigerator and about to do the same with a washing machine, I decided that I needed to look at a TV options and at least see what digital TV offered. That was amplified by being a Linux bigot and wanting to play with MythTV. At this stage I have got digital TV working fine with the frontend being, either the same box as the backend, or wifi to my laptop. (Yes, I have got an ugly tower sitting in the lounge room, but then I don't have anyone to nag me about it, except the cat - I'm planning on building a more acceptable box for it down the line). I also went to the steps of replacing my antenna. My old one was a VHF/UHF antenna pointing south to Mt Baranduda at about 20km; now I have a 13db UHF antenna pointing north-east to North Albury at about 4km. So, what do I get with digital TV? I get good pictures, including HDTV, though my current processor (AMD 1GHz) is not man enough to decode a wide screen 16:9 HD signal and stream it cleanly to a frontend; it will handle a standard 4:3 HD signal and stream it. Actually MythTV does a better job of getting the video and audio streams than the Winders software that came with the capture card. What about content? ABC offers: ABC SD } ABC TV Victoria } all the same content ABC HD } ABC 2 some time shifted content from ABC and some new ABC DiG Radio ABC DiG Jazz SBS offers: SBS SD } SBS 2 } all the same content SBS HD } SBS NEWS SBS Radio 1 SBS Radio 2 Prime offers: Prime Albury } Prime HD } Prime View 1 } all the same content Prime View 2 } Prime View 3 } WIN offers: WIN Upper Murray } WIN HD } all the same content SC10 offers: SC10 } SC10 HD } all the same content MyTalk To I get additionally ABC 2 as a new channel, SBS News which is non-English, 2 radio channels mostly non-English and 2 music channels. I understand that current legislation does not allow the commercial channels to multi-channel. If the government wants to promote the move from analogue to digital then it has to facilitate more content and quality content, not just more channels of cheap to produce "reality" shows. One other thing that has to be got right is for the channels to ensure that their EITs are: 1. Correct, esp at the end and start of programs 2. Appropriate to the region - Prime Albury EIT is not what is broadcast 3. Forward looking - WIN is currently looking forward 3 days, Prime is looking forward 1.5 days but is incorrect for the local region, ABC about .5 days and SBS and SC10, you're lucky if they tell you what the current program is let alone the next one due up. The forward schedules are available for the analogue channels The Winders software has no provision for accessing the EIT stream. So, my recommendations are: 1. more quality content that are not just advert fillers 2. a more reliable EIT stream -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link at mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7 Mail has just got even bigger and better with unlimited storage on all webmail accounts. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From liddy at sunriseresearch.org Mon Aug 6 23:53:13 2007 From: liddy at sunriseresearch.org (Liddy Nevile) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 23:53:13 +1000 Subject: [LINK] OOXML problems Message-ID: <774136BB-38F0-462F-8852-EEDC449B5D53@sunriseresearch.org> Just in case people are interested, I have attached the url to a paper by Jutta Treviranus et al that might be of interest with respect to problems with OOXML for accessibility: http://www.atrc.utoronto.ca/index.php? option=com_content§ionid=14&task=view&hidemainmenu=1&id=371 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Tue Aug 7 09:46:16 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 09:46:16 +1000 Subject: [LINK] re: Australia: Networked Nation - talk to ACS NQ AGM 7 Feb Message-ID: <20070806234639.C01F23E4@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> I wrote Fri, 2 Feb 1996 23:21:52 +1100 : >... this "future history" contains some comment >on the IT and telecommunications policies of >both the current Government and opposition, >contesting the Federal election. ... Be careful what you put online as you never know who will quote it, ten years later before another election: "In 1996, the then President of the Australian Computer Society, Mr Tom Worthington ? whom I am pleased to see is here today?gave a speech in which he envisioned the world 10 years on in 2005. In this tongue-in-cheek vision, he predicted the winner of the 1996 election would de-regulate the Telecommunications industry; I am happy to report his skills as a seer were spot on when we were elected a year later, and did in fact get the Telstra privatisation underway. Tom also predicted that Telstra and Optus would rollout a significant cable network for Pay TV; and they certainly have. And he predicted that competition from Internet voice applications would start to destroy the long distance monopoly the telcos had enjoyed. Again, Tom was on the money. ..." From: Developing a National ICT Capability, Address to ACS Council Breakfast, Senator the Hon Helen Coonan, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, Canberra, Friday 25 May 2007: . ;-) 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 From cas at taz.net.au Tue Aug 7 10:51:02 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 10:51:02 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 02:28:33AM -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > If our government had the foresight of the Brits on digital > television, then maybe more people would be keen, but then they have > their problems too. When you compare Freeview - http://freeview.co.uk/ > - with what Howard outlined below, then it's no wonder so few > Australians take up digital television... i just don't get it. an SD set top box costs $50 or less these days, and greatly improves both reception and picture/sound quality (if you get a signal at all, it'll be perfect. otherwise nothing). that's significantly less than what people spend on getting a new antenna installed to improve reception. more channels may or may not be desirable (IF they included some variety rather than just more of the same crap american cop shows, banal dramas, and reality tv garbage), but IMO the improvement in quality is worth it anyway. if they cost $50 retail, with profit included, they must land in the country from china at about $20 or maybe $30. if the govt really wants to accelerate the adoption of digital TV, it could bulk order a lot of them and give them to low income households so that they are not disadvantaged by the changeover. craig -- craig sanders "Christ came, and Christianity arose...But originating in Judaism, which knew woman only as a being bereft of all rights, and biased by the Biblical conception which saw in her the source of all evil, Christianity preached contempt for women." [August Bebel, "Woman and Socialism", 1893] From marghanita at ramin.com.au Tue Aug 7 11:10:17 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:10:17 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46B7C679.9090100@ramin.com.au> Craig Sanders wrote: > On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 02:28:33AM -0700, David Goldstein wrote: >> If our government had the foresight of the Brits on digital >> television, then maybe more people would be keen, but then they have >> their problems too. When you compare Freeview - http://freeview.co.uk/ >> - with what Howard outlined below, then it's no wonder so few >> Australians take up digital television... > > i just don't get it. an SD set top box costs $50 or less these days, > and greatly improves both reception and picture/sound quality (if you > get a signal at all, it'll be perfect. otherwise nothing). that's > significantly less than what people spend on getting a new antenna > installed to improve reception. > > more channels may or may not be desirable (IF they included some variety > rather than just more of the same crap american cop shows, banal dramas, > and reality tv garbage), but IMO the improvement in quality is worth it > anyway. > > > if they cost $50 retail, with profit included, they must land in the > country from china at about $20 or maybe $30. if the govt really wants > to accelerate the adoption of digital TV, it could bulk order a lot > of them and give them to low income households so that they are not > disadvantaged by the changeover. > Following David's reference, > All this great TV deserves great reception, so it might be a good idea to get your aerial checked. You can get in touch with the Confederation of Aerial Industries (CAI) www.cai.org.uk or the Independent Digital Standards Commission (IDSC) www.idsc.uk.com who can give you details of one or more aerial engineers who operate in your area. noting Howards comments, and a neighbour's interest in an outside antennae having purchased a giant TV, it seems this could be another area of skills shortage. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au Tue Aug 7 20:18:05 2007 From: david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au (David Boxall) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:18:05 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Friday funny a little early In-Reply-To: <46B6719F.7020107@layer10.com.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <61fg7n$4qrau5@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46B6719F.7020107@layer10.com.au> Message-ID: <46B846DD.6010304@hunterlink.net.au> Paul Brooks wrote: > Jan Whitaker wrote: >> >> Here's a question for you. How does the govt intend to make Telstra >> keep the CDMA network operating? Wasn't there a little thing called a >> 'privatisation' not long ago? Is the threat that Howard/Coonan will >> 'nationalise' the company? > A License Condition, probably broadly similar to the one that mandated > replacement of the AMPS system with a digital equivalent. All holders > of a carrier license have to comply with license conditions, > regardless of ownership structure. > CDMA is not 'equivalent' to AMPS. I'm told there are places that had AMPS coverage where CDMA is still not available. NextG is said to be even worse. -- David Boxall | I have seen the past | And it worked. | --TJ Hooker From david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au Tue Aug 7 20:41:58 2007 From: david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au (David Boxall) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:41:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708050413g6f01e577sb80d738b3b2f3246@mail.gmail.com> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> <635bd2180708050413g6f01e577sb80d738b3b2f3246@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46B84C76.2060304@hunterlink.net.au> George Bray wrote: > On 8/5/07, David Boxall wrote: >> It's time for compulsory resumption of the infrastructure into public > ownership. > > That sounds like "on just terms". Tell him he's dreaming. Maybe we > need Bud Tingwell to sort out the Telstra mess. > > g > > > Nostalgia enclosed: > http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/01/28/castle_wideweb__430x293.jpg Yes George, Terms as just as those offered to landholders whose property is resumed (for example, for dams or roads). Wouldn't any deal that doesn't involve a firing squad for Telstra management be overly generous? David Boxall | Laugh and the world laughs with you | Snarl and you get better service. | -- Anon From stephen at melbpc.org.au Tue Aug 7 21:38:14 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (Stephen Loosley) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 21:38:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] 'flurry of gov action in telecommunications' Message-ID: <20070807113848.28D7A64019@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> Coonan opens up broadband race Michael Sainsbury | August 07, 2007 THE federal Government is poised to unveil the guidelines and timetable for the $5 billion-plus residential broadband network that has been at the centre of its escalating dispute with Telstra. Senator Helen Coonan's plan could help kill off broadband as an election issue The process, which will be revealed as early as today, is expected to run beyond the federal election, helping to neuter broadband as an election issue. Interested parties are to be given an initial period of 30 days for comment on the draft guidelines. Both Telstra and a rival Optus-led group known as G9 have released some details of their plans, but the Government is hoping to attract wider participation. At least one offshore telco and one international infrastructure player are understood to be interested in the project. "If you are going to have anyone new in this race, you have got to give them some time to be able to get a bid together," Communications Minister Helen Coonan told The Australian. The release of details for the network comes amid a flurry of government action in the telecommunications sector, which included imposition of a new licence condition that may delay the January 2008 closure of Telstra's CDMA network. Senator Coonan said yesterday she had made the decision because Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo had told her the Next G network would not be available for testing until October, rather than August as originally promised. With testing taking up to 12 weeks, the change would leave the Government little time before Telstra's proposed January 28 switch-off date. "They said it would be available for testing about now and their own timetable has slipped to October," Senator Coonan said. "This is intended to give punters some comfort." Senator Coonan said she had asked Mr Trujillo in June to put back the switch-over date, but he had refused. Telstra spokesman Jeremy Mitchell said: "If the Government now wants to take a backward-looking view, rather than looking to the future of this nation, that would be disturbing to Telstra, its shareholders and its customers." Senator Coonan is understood to have received the draft guidelines for the so-called fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) network on Friday and plans to release them mid-week. "Once people have commented, the final guideline will be released in September," she said. "The taskforce committee (which consists of bureaucrats and business people) has already received plenty of input." But Telstra continues to send out mixed messages about whether it will participate in the project, while working on alternatives. On the other hand, the Government may have to make major legislative changes to force Telstra to work with any rival network, which may see Telstra resort to the courts once more. -- Cheers, people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia . From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Wed Aug 8 08:08:15 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:08:15 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> Craig Sanders wrote: > On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 02:28:33AM -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > >> If our government had the foresight of the Brits on digital >> television, then maybe more people would be keen, but then they have >> their problems too. When you compare Freeview - http://freeview.co.uk/ >> - with what Howard outlined below, then it's no wonder so few >> Australians take up digital television... >> > > i just don't get it. an SD set top box costs $50 or less these days, > and greatly improves both reception and picture/sound quality (if you > get a signal at all, it'll be perfect. otherwise nothing). that's > significantly less than what people spend on getting a new antenna > installed to improve reception. > The problem is that some people just don't care. I don't like to argue solely from myself as the example, but I don't watch that much TV; reception is good enough on analogue with a standard antenna for the amount of TV I watch. Since I catch news and weather, a little sport, Dr Who and not-much-else, there's nothing that I want that digital can pitch to. So the price is immaterial. I don't see the STB as too expensive, it's just that there's other stuff to do; so why bother? Why would I give money to someone for a product I don't want? I guess another piece of the consumer psychology has to do with the multiple-TVs problem. Someone with three analogue TVs in the house has a choice: - Get multiple STBs - Replace all the TVs (harking back to my non-watching habits, I haven't bothered with a plasma or LCD either) - Get one STB and try to reticulate it throughout the house All of these look singularly unpalatable to the hour-a-day TV watcher. RC > more channels may or may not be desirable (IF they included some variety > rather than just more of the same crap american cop shows, banal dramas, > and reality tv garbage), but IMO the improvement in quality is worth it > anyway. > > > if they cost $50 retail, with profit included, they must land in the > country from china at about $20 or maybe $30. if the govt really wants > to accelerate the adoption of digital TV, it could bulk order a lot > of them and give them to low income households so that they are not > disadvantaged by the changeover. > > craig > > From georgebray at gmail.com Wed Aug 8 08:52:22 2007 From: georgebray at gmail.com (George Bray) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 08:52:22 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Next Ten Years Message-ID: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> > Again, Tom was on the money. High praise Tom. But what's going to happen in the *next* ten years? Will we still have belligerent monopolist limiting our IT progress? Will we all have wristwatch iPhones? How far will the national WiMax network reach? Will web standards ever evolve to the point where we Linkers have nothing to complain about? Will a national microband network evolve on the old copper network to distribute 12v services to all Australians? Will we watch live TV, or just download the shows that interest us? George From ivan at itrundle.com Wed Aug 8 09:33:31 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 09:33:31 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 08/08/2007, at 8:52 AM, George Bray wrote: >> Again, Tom was on the money. > > High praise Tom. But what's going to happen in the *next* ten years? > > Will we still have belligerent monopolist limiting our IT progress? Of course - that's the way that our society works. > > Will we all have wristwatch iPhones? If so, it'll be the reincarnation of wristwatches - something that is rapidly zooming out of fashion with young 'uns (and some oldies, too). However, the wrist is about the best place to dangle things, though the ear might be better for listening and talking (and no-one wants to walk/ride/drive with one hand against an ear). > > How far will the national WiMax network reach? In ten years, there might be a handful of oldies using this technology. But the aforementioned monopolists will get in the way. One thing is for sure - it won't be ubiquitous, if previous history is anything to go by. > > Will web standards ever evolve to the point where we Linkers have > nothing to complain about? Having read that the top-ten most popular blogs in the world don't conform to web standards, I see no change here. We'll still have something to whinge about. > > Will a national microband network evolve on the old copper network to > distribute 12v services to all Australians? Old tech again. We'll all have photo-voltaics (sliver cell technology, or similar) on our roof, and will be self-sufficient in the 12v department, at least - possibly even pumping power back into the grid, if aforementioned monopolists don't get in the way. > > Will we watch live TV, or just download the shows that interest us? Do people *still* watch TV? I'm amazed. iT From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Tue Aug 7 12:27:56 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:27:56 +1000 Subject: [LINK] re: Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard Message-ID: <20070807234715.2BF4A3D55@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> I wrote Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:01:53 +1000: >... I had a telephone call from SA on Wednesday >to say that there was no committee considering >OOXML. Instead SA are hosting a forum on the >proposed Draft International Standard ISO/IEC >29500, "Information technology - Office Open XML >file formats" standard in Sydney on 9 August. ... SA sent an agenda for the meeting. This was very useful in clarifying the process SA is using. I couldn't find these details on the SA web site so here are some excerpts: --- ... The European Computer Manufactures' Association International (Ecma International) adopted and published the Microsoft Open Office XML specification as ECMA 376 late in 2006. Ecma approached ISO/IEC JTC1, the international standards organisation for information technology, seeking to use the fast track process to elevate its standard to International Standard status late in 2006, as per its recognised status as a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) submitter. The JTC1 enquiry process opened on 1 January 2007, for a 30 day period. In accordance with the JTC1 Directives (their process rules) Member countries were asked to list any apparent contradictions with existing standards (including ISO/IEC 26300: Information technology - Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument)). Some 19 countries did this, including Australia. The Standards Australia Communications, IT and e-Commerce (CITeC) Standards Sector Board (SSB) developed and approved Australia?s contribution. ECMA provided a response to all contradictions raised and subsequently JTC1 made the document available as ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Information technology - Office Open XML file formats standard for actual balloting by the ISO/IEC member nations. PROCESS As a Participating Member of JTC1, Australia has an obligation to vote on this document. The options open are: * Approve * Approve with comment * Abstain * Disapprove with comment (disapproval of the DIS for technical reasons to be stated, with proposals for changes that would make the document acceptable (acceptance of these proposals shall be referred to the NB concerned for confirmation that the vote can be changed to approval). This contribution will be approved in advance by the CITeC Standards Sector Board by consensus. The final vote will be submitted by Standards Australia by 2 September 2007. PURPOSE OF THIS MEETING The purpose of this meeting is to provide a forum for discussion by interested parties to advise Standards Australia in development of its submission for approval by the CITeC Standards Sector Board. Invitees to this meeting include: * Members of Standards Australia?s committees: o IT-004 Geographical Information Systems o IT-015 Software & Systems Engineering o IT-019 Computer Applications ? Information & Documentation o IT-027 Data Management & Interchange o IT-031 Computer Modelling and Simulation * Members of the CITeC SSB * Interested parties who have submitted comments since the beginning of the initial comment period in January 2007, by e-mail or letter. Participants are invited to contribute their comments in writing following the forum by 21 August 2007 to ensure that they are considered in development of the submission to the CITeC SSB. CONSIDERATIONS TO NOTE Standards Australia is recognised by the Government as Australia?s peak standards body. It develops Australian Standards? of public benefit and national interest and supports excellence in design and innovation through the Australian Design Awards. Standards Australia is Australia?s representative on the International Organization for Standardization [ISO], the International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC], and the Pacific Area Standards Congress [PASC]. Participation in international committee work is dependent on our capacity to consult and respond through the Australian committee structure. The CITeC Standards Sector Board is responsible for this vote. This forum is being conducted by Standards Australia as a courtesy to stakeholders. It is an extraordinary meeting that we are not required to hold, but do so to provide an open process. We appreciate your attendance and expect that you appreciate our effort in making this opportunity available to you. Standards Australia values its vote as a participating member of all international committees, and does not exercise it injudiciously. We provide considered Australian viewpoints that are beneficial to Australian stakeholders, including industry, government, academia and the general community, through the facilitation of trade and the inclusion of clear Australian requirements in international standards. The JTC1 process has established that the ECMA-376 document is not contradictory to existing standards and ECMA has responded to a number of technical considerations raised in the initial consultation period. This forum is not to debate the merits of the JTC1 decision making process or the validity of the ECMA response. While technical comments are welcomed, it would be entirely counter productive to use this forum to reiterate technical comments that have already been raised and are likely to be debated in every JTC1 member body in some form. We are looking for creative, positive contributions that emphasise our commitment to representing truly Australian views to the international community. To ensure the best outcome for the meeting, we ask you to note the guidelines and agenda below. GUIDELINES ? Standards Australia will document the meeting and will share with attendees/interested parties not able to attend. Discussion will not be recorded, in line with our general committee meeting policies. ? When general discussion commences, please limit your contribution to no more than five minutes. ? Speakers should be allowed to complete presentations, prior to inviting questions or comments. Responses, including questions, should be raised through meeting chair. ? When individuals do comment, they should state their name and organisational affiliation, if any. ? Respect others? opinions. AGENDA 10am Opening of the meeting and attendance (please sign attendance list) 10.10am Introduction - Standards Australia 10.30am Invited discussion openers 10.30 -10.40am General overview of the standards process 10.40 ? 11.00am Objections to ISO/IEC adoption of DIS 29500 11.00 ? 11.20am Case for ISO/IEC adoption of DIS 29500 11.20am 20 minute break 11.40am General Discussion 12.45pm Summary and next steps 1pm Close Participants are invited to contribute their comments in writing following the forum by 21 August 2007 to ensure that they are considered in development of the submission to the CITeC Standards Sector Board. CONTACT Please confirm attendance via e-mail to: michael.langdon (a) standards.org.au --- 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 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Wed Aug 8 09:52:45 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:52:45 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Planting trees will not save the planet: official In-Reply-To: <46B900DA.2090000@lannet.com.au> References: <46B900DA.2090000@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46B905CD.1050706@ramin.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/07/banking_carbon/ > > Bad news for plastic greens: planting trees really isn't going to save > us from global warming. Researchers studying pine trees in North > Carolina have determined that there is a limit to the amount of extra > carbon dioxide a tree can actually turn into more tree. > > The decade-long Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) experiment, set up to > test the viability of proposals to "bank" humanity's carbon emissions by > growing forests, revealed that to make an impact on the amount of CO2 we > are pumping out, we'd need to feed the growing trees so much extra water > and fertiliser that the societal impact would be unacceptable. > > [...] > A couple of weeks ago, I put together a page on Carbon & Climate Change and am still reelling from my research. There are some interesting calculators around. According to the The Greenhouse Accounting CRC's Tree Carbon Calculator, fast growing softwood pine aborbs less CO2 than hardwood Eucalyptus....but it is still pretty slow. Ofcourse trees that drop their leaves don't photosynthesise without their leaves and absorb no CO2 during winter. There is also some interesting data available on cars and home appliances. comments on page most welcome. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From gordonkeith at acslink.net.au Wed Aug 8 09:59:57 2007 From: gordonkeith at acslink.net.au (Gordon Keith) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 09:59:57 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <200708080959.57702.gordonkeith@acslink.net.au> On Wednesday 08 August 2007 08:08, Richard Chirgwin wrote: > The problem is that some people just don't care. I don't like to argue > solely from myself as the example, but I don't watch that much TV; > reception is good enough on analogue with a standard antenna for the > amount of TV I watch. Since I catch news and weather, a little sport, Dr > Who and not-much-else, there's nothing that I want that digital can > pitch to. > > So the price is immaterial. I don't see the STB as too expensive, it's > just that there's other stuff to do; so why bother? Why would I give > money to someone for a product I don't want? While your TV watching seems to be much more extensive than mine :-), I agree whole heartedly with your reasoning. Regards Gordon -- Gordon Keith There are 3 types of people, those who can count and those who can't. From gordonkeith at acslink.net.au Wed Aug 8 09:59:57 2007 From: gordonkeith at acslink.net.au (Gordon Keith) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 09:59:57 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <200708080959.57702.gordonkeith@acslink.net.au> On Wednesday 08 August 2007 08:08, Richard Chirgwin wrote: > The problem is that some people just don't care. I don't like to argue > solely from myself as the example, but I don't watch that much TV; > reception is good enough on analogue with a standard antenna for the > amount of TV I watch. Since I catch news and weather, a little sport, Dr > Who and not-much-else, there's nothing that I want that digital can > pitch to. > > So the price is immaterial. I don't see the STB as too expensive, it's > just that there's other stuff to do; so why bother? Why would I give > money to someone for a product I don't want? While your TV watching seems to be much more extensive than mine :-), I agree whole heartedly with your reasoning. Regards Gordon -- Gordon Keith There are 3 types of people, those who can count and those who can't. From marghanita at ramin.com.au Wed Aug 8 10:19:04 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:19:04 +1000 Subject: [LINK] re: Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard In-Reply-To: <20070807234715.2BF4A3D55@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> References: <20070807234715.2BF4A3D55@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <46B90BF8.2000003@ramin.com.au> Tom Worthington wrote: > I wrote Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:01:53 +1000: >> ... I had a telephone call from SA on Wednesday to say that there was > As a Participating Member of JTC1, Australia has an obligation to vote > on this document. The options open are: > > * Approve > * Approve with comment > * Abstain > * Disapprove with comment (disapproval of the DIS for technical > reasons to be stated, with proposals for changes that would make the > document acceptable (acceptance of these proposals shall be referred to > the NB concerned for confirmation that the vote can be changed to > approval). It is worth noting the Keypoints of Productivity Commission research report, Standard Setting and Laboratory Accreditation, released on 16 November 2006. > Standard setting > > Standards Australia should make the following improvements: > > * systematically consider costs and benefits before developing or revising a standard, and publish reasons for such decisions > * ensure more balanced stakeholder representation > * reduce barriers to volunteer and public participation > * improve accessibility, transparency and timeliness, including an improved appeals and complaints mechanism. > > All government bodies should rigorously analyse impacts before making a standard mandatory by way of regulation and ensure it is the minimum necessary to achieve the policy objective. Each Australian Government agency should also provide the funding necessary to ensure free or low cost access to such standards, including Australian Standards. and ofcourse Glen's tale. -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From cas at taz.net.au Wed Aug 8 10:45:29 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 10:45:29 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> On Wed, Aug 08, 2007 at 08:08:15AM +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote: > The problem is that some people just don't care. I don't like to argue > solely from myself as the example, but I don't watch that much TV; > reception is good enough on analogue with a standard antenna for the amount > of TV I watch. which begs the question: why should the analog TV spectrum be wasted on people who just don't care? > Since I catch news and weather, a little sport, Dr Who and > not-much-else, there's nothing that I want that digital can pitch to. i don't watch or care about that much on TV either, mostly ABC, sometimes SBS, rarely something on one of the commercial channels (with a book in hand for the ads). However, i do prefer watching the stuff that i want to watch WITHOUT ghosting or interference (before i got the SD box, reception of ABC TV was dreadful, possibly due to the huge electricity pylons running along the creek a few hundred meters away). i tried a new antenna (about $130 incl. installation about 5 years ago), it made no difference. the problem only went away - completely vanished - when i bought an SD box about 3 years ago (for about $100 IIRC). it died about six months ago after a lightning storm, i replaced it for about $50. > So the price is immaterial. I don't see the STB as too expensive, it's just > that there's other stuff to do; so why bother? Why would I give money to > someone for a product I don't want? because you want to be able to continue using the TV set you bought after the analog signal is discontinued? technology moves on and scarce resources are reallocated. that's why, for example, town planners don't waste much public space in roads and towns on drinking troughs for horses and camels any more. craig -- craig sanders From wavey_one at yahoo.com Wed Aug 8 10:57:13 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 17:57:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] Paris leaps ahead with broadband Message-ID: <143542.16564.qm@web50504.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Making a mockery of our government's broadband proposal, in Paris they're building a 100mbps fibre-to-the-home network. BT says it's too expensive for them to do it. The issue is covered in an interesting story on BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight this morning our time and is available online for around a week. I've got an outline of the story on my website at http://technewsreview.com.au/article.php?article=2269 with a link to the the story. Cheers David ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7 Mail has just got even bigger and better with unlimited storage on all webmail accounts. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Wed Aug 8 11:17:49 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:17:49 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> Craig Sanders wrote: [snip] >> So the price is immaterial. I don't see the STB as too expensive, it's just >> that there's other stuff to do; so why bother? Why would I give money to >> someone for a product I don't want? >> > > because you want to be able to continue using the TV set you bought after the > analog signal is discontinued? > ...Indeed. And that will be the sole reason for doing so. But get this: if the digitisation turns out to be an utter disaster, if it has to be delayed because not enough people care, then doesn't it cast the policy itself into doubt? The policy, it should be remembered, was not in any way a response to citizen demand. It's a "for your own good" policy. > technology moves on and scarce resources are reallocated. that's why, > for example, town planners don't waste much public space in roads and > towns on drinking troughs for horses and camels any more. > When we're talking about a consumer product, I'm not convinced that government edict is a good way to measure obsolescence. RC > > craig > > From lucychili at gmail.com Wed Aug 8 11:25:02 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 10:55:02 +0930 Subject: [LINK] re: Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard In-Reply-To: <20070807234715.2BF4A3D55@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> References: <20070807234715.2BF4A3D55@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: On 8/7/07, Tom Worthington wrote: I wrote Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:01:53 +1000: > SA sent an agenda for the meeting. This was very > useful in clarifying the process SA is using. I > couldn't find these details on the SA web site so here are some excerpts: Yes it is interesting stuff > The JTC1 process has established that the > ECMA-376 document is not contradictory to > existing standards and ECMA has responded to a > number of technical considerations raised in the > initial consultation period. This forum is not to > debate the merits of the JTC1 decision making > process or the validity of the ECMA response. Except that this is incorrect isn't it. ooxml is known to conflict with the date and time standards. people using ooxml would be required to function in a way which would break existing time and date standards in order to comply with ooxml. doesnt this undermine standards practice overall if the organisations are not able to be internally consistent? It feels like a choice between the proposal or supporting standards as a process and internally consistent set of practices. If the technical aspects of the proposal are known to be flawed, and our standards process is aware of this and is still deeming the technical aspects correct, what purpose does the current process serve? What is the function of the standards process if not to ensure that the standards are congruent and functional? Janet From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Wed Aug 8 12:01:27 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 12:01:27 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C72081336DE@cal066.act.gov.au> Where are you guys getting these $50 digital teevee tuners? Are they available in Canberra? I've found them for $150 - $250. Cheers, Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From gdt at gdt.id.au Wed Aug 8 12:27:58 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:57:58 +0930 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C72081336DE@cal066.act.gov.au> References: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C72081336DE@cal066.act.gov.au> Message-ID: <1186540078.3449.18.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 12:01 +1000, Pilcher, Fred wrote: > Where are you guys getting these $50 digital teevee tuners? Are they available in Canberra? I've found them for $150 - $250. Hi Fred, The "$2 shop". I don't know about the ACT, but here in SA if you listen for the worst ads on TV then you've come across one. You obviously take a punt as to the quality of the unit. The set top box is actually an interesting exercise in electronics retail margins. The standard definition boxes are around $30-$50. But Hardly Normal, Retrovision, etc can't make a quid at that price, so they only stock the $150 high definition set top boxes. I had to install a set top box for a neighbor. Now she has five remote controls! So I suspect some consumer resistance is more than merely financial. Best wishes, Glen From marghanita at ramin.com.au Wed Aug 8 12:47:04 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:47:04 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46B92EA8.7040002@ramin.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > > > Richard Chirgwin wrote: >> Craig Sanders wrote: >> [snip] >>>> So the price is immaterial. I don't see the STB as too expensive, >>>> it's just that there's other stuff to do; so why bother? Why would I >>>> give money to someone for a product I don't want? >>>> >>> >>> because you want to be able to continue using the TV set you bought >>> after the >>> analog signal is discontinued? >>> >> ...Indeed. And that will be the sole reason for doing so. >> >> But get this: if the digitisation turns out to be an utter disaster, >> if it has to be delayed because not enough people care, then doesn't >> it cast the policy itself into doubt? The policy, it should be >> remembered, was not in any way a response to citizen demand. It's a >> "for your own good" policy. > > No Richard, digitisation does have benefits, the main one being the > ability to deliver more content within a given bandwidth. Just look at > ABC and SBS (the only services that are currently permitted to > multi-channel), They each deliver one analogue service on each of the > channels that they use to broadcast analogue on, but currently each > deliver 6 digital services on each of the channels that they use to > broadcast digital on. > > What we need is for the commercial stations to be permitted to > multi-channel, and for there to be more (or even any would be nice) > quality content. I was going to respond when you brought up multichannelling before...this problem is the fault of the existing free to air stations who wanted to keep their comfortable little pentapoly. So, they argued for HDTV - despite the cost of production, transmission and reception not being justified. > Free-to-air (FTA) television (TV) and radio broadcasts are sent unencrypted and may be received via any suitable receiver. Free-to-view (FTV) is, generally, available without subscription but is encoded and may be restricted geographically. Neither of these are pay-TV, which is an encrypted subscription (or pay-per-view) service. FTA is usually delivered by satellite television, but in various parts of the world with encrypted digital terrestrial television channels it is broadcast on UHF or VHF bands. > > Although these channels are described as free; the viewer does in fact pay for them. Some are paid directly by payment of a licence fee (as in the case of the BBC) or voluntary donation (in the ca and You can probably check out the link archives and fine extensive discussion there from long ago. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Wed Aug 8 14:02:24 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:02:24 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <1186540078.3449.18.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C72081336DE@cal066.act.gov.au> <1186540078.3449.18.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <46B94050.9090206@ramin.com.au> Glen Turner wrote: > On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 12:01 +1000, Pilcher, Fred wrote: >> Where are you guys getting these $50 digital teevee tuners? Are they available in Canberra? I've found them for $150 - $250. > > Hi Fred, > > The "$2 shop". I don't know about the ACT, but here in SA if you listen > for the worst ads on TV then you've come across one. You obviously > take a punt as to the quality of the unit. Aldi (in ACT and Sydney at least) have a SD box, not sure of the price, but it is less than the USB DVB-T device (which does HD as well) I bought from them for $80 a few months back. > > The set top box is actually an interesting exercise in electronics > retail margins. The standard definition boxes are around $30-$50. > But Hardly Normal, Retrovision, etc can't make a quid at that price, > so they only stock the $150 high definition set top boxes. > > I had to install a set top box for a neighbor. Now she has five > remote controls! So I suspect some consumer resistance is more > than merely financial. > > Best wishes, Glen > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From stephen at melbpc.org.au Wed Aug 8 15:36:11 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 05:36:11 GMT Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination Message-ID: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Hi all, Link Nomination: "Most Money Spent on an Aussie Web Ad" Cheers, people Stephen Loosley From pbolger at gmail.com Wed Aug 8 16:00:32 2007 From: pbolger at gmail.com (Paul Bolger) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 15:30:32 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: Is it a car ad? The only clue I have is 'Audi' in the page title. I'm still waiting for it to load - a black screen and strange whooshing noises for over five minutes. The phrase "It'd be quicker to walk" comes to mind. On 08/08/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Hi all, > > Link Nomination: "Most Money Spent on an Aussie Web Ad" > > > > Cheers, people > Stephen Loosley > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Wed Aug 8 16:03:41 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 16:03:41 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46B94E63.8060700@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C72081336E1@cal066.act.gov.au> Thanks for all the advice, guys. I'll report back. Cheers, Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From darrell.burkey at anu.edu.au Wed Aug 8 16:13:33 2007 From: darrell.burkey at anu.edu.au (Darrell Burkey) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:13:33 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: References: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <1186553613.23992.10.camel@bippo> 5 Mins eh? You might want to switch to pigeon packet delivery. Sounds like it would be faster. On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 16:00, Paul Bolger wrote: > Is it a car ad? The only clue I have is 'Audi' in the page title. I'm > still waiting for it to load - a black screen and strange whooshing > noises for over five minutes. The phrase "It'd be quicker to walk" -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Darrell Burkey UNIX Systems Administrator College of Asia & the Pacific Australian National University Ph: (02) 6125 4160 From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Wed Aug 8 17:11:28 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:11:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46B96CA0.2020303@ozemail.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > > > Richard Chirgwin wrote: >> Craig Sanders wrote: >> [snip] >>>> So the price is immaterial. I don't see the STB as too expensive, >>>> it's just that there's other stuff to do; so why bother? Why would >>>> I give money to someone for a product I don't want? >>>> >>> >>> because you want to be able to continue using the TV set you bought >>> after the >>> analog signal is discontinued? >>> >> ...Indeed. And that will be the sole reason for doing so. >> >> But get this: if the digitisation turns out to be an utter disaster, >> if it has to be delayed because not enough people care, then doesn't >> it cast the policy itself into doubt? The policy, it should be >> remembered, was not in any way a response to citizen demand. It's a >> "for your own good" policy. > > No Richard, digitisation does have benefits, ...but those benefits accrue to the TV stations, to people freeing and selling bandwidth, but only to a subset of consumers - the ones that want multichanneling. They may be real, but they ain't mine; so the digital TV push says "if Richard co-operates, then people who want multi-channeling can have it." But that still isn't a pitch that delivers benefits to me! "What if everybody felt the way you do?" "Then I'd sure be a fool to feel any other way." - Catch-22 RC > the main one being the ability to deliver more content within a given > bandwidth. Just look at ABC and SBS (the only services that are > currently permitted to multi-channel), They each deliver one analogue > service on each of the channels that they use to broadcast analogue > on, but currently each deliver 6 digital services on each of the > channels that they use to broadcast digital on. > > What we need is for the commercial stations to be permitted to > multi-channel, and for there to be more (or even any would be nice) > quality content. > >>> technology moves on and scarce resources are reallocated. that's why, >>> for example, town planners don't waste much public space in roads and >>> towns on drinking troughs for horses and camels any more. >>> >> When we're talking about a consumer product, I'm not convinced that >> government edict is a good way to measure obsolescence. >> >> RC >>> >>> craig >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Link mailing list >> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au >> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link >> > From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Wed Aug 8 17:32:08 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 17:32:08 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: <46B96891.8080608@lannet.com.au> References: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <46B96891.8080608@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: >stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Hi all, > Link Nomination: "Most Money Spent on an Aussie Web Ad" > Howard Lowndes : >What a crock of sh!t. It made Firefox totally unstable and gave a >new meaning to Flash, and nearly caused me to lose 16 open tabs that >I had been working with. Good heavens - it worked fine in Safari 2.0.4 (419.3), albeit with a couple of pauses that even 1Mbps ADSL didn't seem to cope with. I even thought it was quite well done, so maybe my usual scepticism went missing this afternoon. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Wed Aug 8 18:22:09 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:22:09 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 11:50 AM 8/08/2007, Howard Lowndes wrote: >What we need is for the commercial stations to be permitted to >multi-channel, and for there to be more (or even any would be nice) >quality content. Makes me wonder if the free to air or the gubmint have nudge wink deals with Foxtel to not do this. I would love a couple more channel types: old b&w movies cartoons [rocky and bullwinkle, looney tunes, etc] weather channel, even if it were just a graphic with updates of satellite imagery a clock educational programs (there are quite a few of those available, used to be on Open Learning) arts and music there must be a lot of programming from the hundreds of cable stations in the US that aren't being shown here that could be. why are we deprived? Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From eleanor at pacific.net.au Wed Aug 8 21:59:25 2007 From: eleanor at pacific.net.au (Eleanor Lister) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 21:59:25 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: References: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <46B9B01D.7060405@pacific.net.au> Paul Bolger wrote: > Is it a car ad? The only clue I have is 'Audi' in the page title. I'm > still waiting for it to load - a black screen and strange whooshing > noises for over five minutes. The phrase "It'd be quicker to walk" > comes to mind. > > On 08/08/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> Link Nomination: "Most Money Spent on an Aussie Web Ad" >> >> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> Message-ID: <200708082211.01620.dlochrin@d2.net.au> On Sunday 05 August 2007 16:39, David Boxall wrote: > Let me tell you a story:- > 18 July: phone line damage reported to Telstra. > 19 July: temporary repair effected, leaving wiring clipped together in > the bottom of a trench, protected by plastic bags. > 26 July: a phone call to Telstra faults reveals that the job has been > closed off and no follow-up organised. Follow-up arranged. > 27 July: A linesman arrives, looks at the mess, says something about how > it can be permanently repaired, then leaves. > 2 August: a phone call to Telstra faults reveals that the job has been > closed off and no follow-up organised. Appointment made for the > following day. > 4 August: a phone call to Telstra faults elicits the response that a > permanent repair was effected by reprogramming the ISDN terminal > adapter. A quick look in the trench reveals the same mess, [...] The problem seems to be that most Telstra repairs are done by poorly trained technicians whose managers are goaled on call-closure rate. Throwing a controlled tantrum and escalating the call can help, and I have gone as far as the Local Member for one customer. The sooner basic telecommunications infrastructure goes back into public ownership and Telstra is relegated to insignificance the better, in my view. David From rick at praxis.com.au Thu Aug 9 07:00:44 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:00:44 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: <46B9B01D.7060405@pacific.net.au> References: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <46B9B01D.7060405@pacific.net.au> Message-ID: <46BA2EFC.80705@praxis.com.au> Eleanor Lister wrote: > Paul Bolger wrote: >> Is it a car ad? The only clue I have is 'Audi' in the page title. I'm >> still waiting for it to load - a black screen and strange whooshing >> noises for over five minutes. The phrase "It'd be quicker to walk" >> comes to mind. >> >> On 08/08/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> Link Nomination: "Most Money Spent on an Aussie Web Ad" >>> >>> > it makes my head hurt It is a well-executed waste of electrons that used 100% of my CPU and heaps of bandwidth. Flash is a total abomination. If that ad was implemented as an MPEG it would have used about 1/100 the CPU and bandwidth resources. The interactivity provided by the ad was useless and stupid: "It's not rocket surgery" ? The people that put so much effort into this crap are a waste of oxygen. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. -- Arthur C Clarke From rick at praxis.com.au Thu Aug 9 07:04:27 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:04:27 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> Jan Whitaker wrote: > there must be a lot of programming from the hundreds of cable stations > in the US that aren't being shown here that could be. > > why are we deprived? Of course those specialised cable channels in North America are funded by subscription. BTW: Has anyone seen free-to-air in use in Canada or the USA in the past, say, fifteen years? I cannot recall seeing it. *Everyone* seems to have cable, even if to watch the CBC and PBS. Cable has failed in Australia, probably for several reasons: the cost is outrageous for what you get and the culture is different. Aussies actually spend more time outdoors than North Americans. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. -- Arthur C Clarke From stil at stilgherrian.com Thu Aug 9 08:01:24 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:01:24 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: <46BA2EFC.80705@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: "Rick Welykochy" and the rest of the tired old fogeys wrote things along the lines of: > It is a well-executed waste of electrons that used 100% of my CPU and > heaps of bandwidth. Flash is a total abomination. If that ad was > implemented as an MPEG it would have used about 1/100 the CPU and bandwidth > resources. The interactivity provided by the ad was useless and stupid: > [snip] > The people that put so much effort into this crap are a waste of > oxygen. Ah, so much energy wasted on such a trivial issue...! Yes, some enthusiastic kiddie-creative at an ad agency convinced the client that their "wonderful idea" for a web advert should be made. And you don't like it. Diddums. Sure, the ad's a bunch of self-indulgent shit. Were you ever likely to buy an Audi anyway? No. So who cares what you think? Railing against the "misuse" of Flash etc... it's hardly the most important issue facing the planet, or even the most important issue facing the topics that Link is about. I won't bother listing them, but there's plenty of FAR more important issues which deserve the energy and intelligent attention of Linkers. Especially in an election year. But then, Link is only populated with tired old luddites which think that anything more than ASCII text is "inefficient" and that no-one should be allowed to use more technology than their own clapped-out 486 and whatever low-bandwidth link they can persuade Telstra (or the PMG, as they know it) to run to their shotgun shack in some godforsaken beyond-rural hellhole. Killjoys. > "It's not rocket surgery" ? It's quote from Kath & Kim. Folks in the target market would get it. Happy Thursday, love your work, Rick. :) Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From stil at stilgherrian.com Thu Aug 9 08:22:24 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:22:24 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 8/8/07 5:32 PM, "Roger Clarke" wrote: > I even thought it was quite well done, so maybe my usual scepticism > went missing this afternoon. Well obviously you're not a tired old fogey bearded academic... ;) Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From saliya at hinet.net.au Thu Aug 9 08:24:01 2007 From: saliya at hinet.net.au (Saliya Wimalaratne) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 08:24:01 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <20070808222401.GA8451@netspace.hinet.net.au> On Wed, Aug 08, 2007 at 05:36:11AM +0000, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Hi all, > > Link Nomination: "Most Money Spent on an Aussie Web Ad" > > += "with a spelling mistake" ? :) Regards, Saliya From pbolger at gmail.com Thu Aug 9 08:52:55 2007 From: pbolger at gmail.com (Paul Bolger) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 08:22:55 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: <46BA438C.3000704@lannet.com.au> References: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <46B9B01D.7060405@pacific.net.au> <46BA438C.3000704@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: I was a bit disappointed, after sitting through that thing, to realise that the car company still expect me to pay for the car - I thought by that point I'd earned it. > Eleanor Lister wrote: > > Paul Bolger wrote: > >> Is it a car ad? The only clue I have is 'Audi' in the page title. I'm > >> still waiting for it to load - a black screen and strange whooshing > >> noises for over five minutes. The phrase "It'd be quicker to walk" > >> comes to mind. > >> > >> On 08/08/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > >> > >>> Hi all, > >>> > >>> Link Nomination: "Most Money Spent on an Aussie Web Ad" > >>> > >>> > > > it makes my head hurt > > It's also interesting how it defines you as an acceptable profile when > you make absolutely zero input. :) > > Audi - nice car - shall not be buying one... > > > > > - > > ------------ > > Eleanor Ashley Lister > > South Sydney Greens > > http://ssg.nsw.greens.org.au > > webmistress at ssg.nsw.greens.org.au > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Link mailing list > > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > > > > -- > Howard. > LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people > When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; > When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. > -- > Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > From cas at taz.net.au Thu Aug 9 09:05:55 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 09:05:55 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C72081336DE@cal066.act.gov.au> References: <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C72081336DE@cal066.act.gov.au> Message-ID: <20070808230554.GI4898@taz.net.au> On Wed, Aug 08, 2007 at 12:01:27PM +1000, Pilcher, Fred wrote: > Where are you guys getting these $50 digital teevee tuners? Are they > available in Canberra? I've found them for $150 - $250. i got one of my SD boxes from JB HIFI and the other from Good Guys, both reasonably large chains. can't remember which came from where (they both have shops next to each in Preston, not far from me). one was about $100 3 years ago, one was about $50 6 months ago....roughly equivalent quality, so i guess that's how much cheap models have dropped in price in approx. 3 years. craig -- craig sanders From cas at taz.net.au Thu Aug 9 09:09:58 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 09:09:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070808230958.GJ4898@taz.net.au> On Wed, Aug 08, 2007 at 08:52:22AM +1000, George Bray wrote: > Will web standards ever evolve to the point where we Linkers have > nothing to complain about? web standards aren't the problem. it's the idiot web designers who ignore the standards. craig -- craig sanders BOFH excuse #347: The rubber band broke From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Thu Aug 9 08:55:06 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 08:55:06 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.co m> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 08:52 AM 8/08/2007, George Bray wrote: > > Again, Tom was on the money. > >High praise Tom. But what's going to happen in the *next* ten years? ... The next ten years is easy. The Minister wanted to know what would happen in the next 30 years. ;-) Appended is my first draft of "Networking 2016". >Will we still have belligerent monopolist limiting our IT progress? No, I expect we will have several oligopolies. >Will we all have wristwatch iPhones? I was thinking more of StarTrek Next Generation communicators, worn as jewelry. In the nearer term we will have iPhone type devices, but running open source Linux software. I am seeing if we can have a demonstration of one of these in Canberra next week. >How far will the national WiMax network reach? We will have about 98% of the population covered with various terrestrial wireless networks. That is as far as the economics will stretch. This will be a mix of different WiMax and mobile phone networks. >Will web standards ever evolve to the point where we Linkers have >nothing to complain about? No. But perhaps we can automate the complaints process, so the system automatically drafts a comment on news items, then automatically writes a self promotional reply from me, then an objection to that from ... ;-) >Will a national microband network evolve on the old copper network >to distribute 12v services to all Australians? No, but we might have 48 volts to many office desks in Australia. I have arranged for Kevin Miller, a green architect, to talk on how to build environmentally friendly offices in Canberra . I have asked him, if IT people replace desktop PCs and phones with low power thin clients , how will that change office design. One option is to eliminate mains power to office desks and use Power Over Ethernet instead for computers and task lighting. Using a low voltage does not itself save power (it is less efficient than mains power), but it would stop office workers using power hungry devices. >Will we watch live TV, or just download the shows that interest us? What is now TV will become just one minor inflexible form of digital entertainment. The idea of material which is only available at a scheduled time and can't be paused will seem bizarre to the average viewer (already I find it annoying that I can't fast forward on the rare occasions I watch live TV). We might be doing this using our "smart rooms" . --- Networking 2016 Jim is not a happy man. His new Toyota Tarrago was late being delivered from the dealer and now he will not be able to pick up the kids in time. They grumbled about his choice of a third generation hybrid combustion/electric vehicle: "Dad, why can't we have a proper electric car like normal families?". They laughed at Jim's idea they would be able to drive beyond the limited range of a battery car: "But the electric highway reaches all the way to the other end of the city now and if we want to go further where are you going to be able to buy fossil fuel anyway?". Then there was the problem of getting the car to recognize his communicator. In 2016 the mobile phone has shrunk to the size of a piece of jewellery and is normally worn like the communicators in "Star Trek Next Generation". Communicators act as car keys as well as phones. But Jim had difficulty getting his old model communicator to link to his new car. Eventually the car's security system recognized the communicator, so Jim could simply walk up to the door and step in. At least he had remembered to upload the configuration file of the old car to the family data store. Downloaded into the new car this allowed the details of the family's preferences to be preset. When Jim walked up to the car the communicator opened the door and the car, recognizing Jim, set the electric seat and steering wheel to the right height, adjusted the mirrors, set the radio station. The car navigation system searched for an optimal route to the likely journey for this time of day, checked the family schedule and bulletins. All Jim needed to do was to confirm he wanted to go to the school to pick up Sally. As Jim drove off the system advised that there was a priority request from the household: could he pick up some milk? But the navigation system estimated there was not sufficient time to do this and pick up Sally on time, so Jim said "no" to the system. Meanwhile Sally was running late. It was sports day and she was dawdling chatting to her new friends from third grade. Like all students Sally had her communicator with her. This is a simple disposable model (children tend to loose them before the batteries go flat). The unit can identify Sally by a signature phrase for voice identification (children usually use an nursery rime) and verify bio metrically using an accelerometer measuring her walking style. The school system checked its heuristics to see if it was okay for Sally to still be on school premises after hours. The system noticed Sally was with another student and it wasn't too late, even so the system checked with Sally's home system to see this was okay. If Sally was with a stranger the system would have checked with Jim (by law all visitors to a school are required to have an electronic visitors pass, or their own communicator). Noticing Sally was running late, the car navigation system recalculated the route and altered Jim there was time to pick up the milk, collect Sally and get home. Jim accepted the suggestion "confirm" and the car plotted the shortest route to the shop at this time of day. The electronic pantry at Jim's place had checked and found the usual shop was out of the milk Ellen, Jim's wife preferred, so the navigation system picked the next nearest shop. Ellen has just left work. As she walked out of her office the company system shut down her office computer, lights and air conditioning. The system had made a reasonable guess that Ellen was on her way home and had not just gone down the corridor. It had been a difficult day for Ellen at her PR office was handling the Federal Government's proposed restrictions on indigenous land use. Within minutes of the proposal being announced on the Prime Minister's official "My Tube" web site, it had been transmitted to remote indigenous communities across Australia. The secretariat of the Indigenous Virtual Land Council contacted members by mobile phone, WiMax and satellite for an emergency meeting. The meeting was held thirty minutes later using "smart rooms" in communities across Australia, including one on an offshore fish farm. The more remote smartrooms are converted shipping containers equipped with solar panels for power, LCD screens in the walls and a wireless link. These are also used as flexible learning centers for the local schools. But the most remote participant was the first Australian taikonaut aboard the Chinese-European space station in low earth orbit. After thirty minutes debate the land council issued a statement condemning the PM's proposals. The text, audio and video feeds went out over the council's network a few minutes later. With in an hour, as well as thousands of complaints to MPs, there were several electronic writs served on the Federal Government for racial discrimination and a detailed economic model showing the effect of a threatened boycott by aboriginal artists (Australia's major export earner). Ellen had to summon up as much support as she could via the official ComNet and unofficial political channels. Even so the polls taken a few minutes later indicated a lack of support for the Government and it was likely the proposal would be radically changed by the team working overnight from Bangalore. Meanwhile Prime Minister Julia Gillard was still aboard the Australian Navy flag ship HMAS Canberra, meeting with US President Hillary Clinton about the war on climate change. The PM was due to record another "Vodcast to the Nation" in the aircraft carrier's command and control smartroom (adapted from the technology used by the virtual land council). She was then to attend the next session of eParliment from the smartroom. --- 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 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Thu Aug 9 09:49:36 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:49:36 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <46BA5690.1020602@ramin.com.au> Rick Welykochy wrote: > Jan Whitaker wrote: > >> there must be a lot of programming from the hundreds of cable stations >> in the US that aren't being shown here that could be. >> >> why are we deprived? > > Of course those specialised cable channels in North America are funded > by subscription. > > BTW: Has anyone seen free-to-air in use in Canada or the USA in the past, > say, fifteen years? I cannot recall seeing it. *Everyone* seems to > have cable, even if to watch the CBC and PBS. > > Cable has failed in Australia, probably for several reasons: the cost > is outrageous for what you get and the culture is different. Aussies > actually spend more time outdoors than North Americans. > Cable was a legacy technology when it was installed in Australia. However, the powers that be, I think labor at the time, thought we have to have what everyone else had. We could and I think do have subscription/pay via wireless. And I would guess some people subscribe to Satellite subscription services. [Howard, does MythTV support this?] DVB-H looks interesting. To put this all in the best possible light - the Government has an obligation to protect the value of the spectrum/existing business interests. In the worst possible light they are opting for the status quo in Media. My recollection of Cable TV in Toronto in 1989, is a heap of stations dedicated to Star Trek & Doctor Who - can't remember if it was one station each. Sports fans do subscribe to Foxtel cable. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Thu Aug 9 10:10:59 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 10:10:59 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: >At 08:52 AM 8/08/2007, George Bray wrote: >>Will we all have wristwatch iPhones? At 8:55 +1000 9/8/07, Tom Worthington wrote: >I was thinking more of StarTrek Next Generation communicators, worn >as jewelry. In the nearer term we will have iPhone type devices, but >running open source Linux software. I am seeing if we can have a >demonstration of one of these in Canberra next week. A cautionary, based on experiences with my (occasional, mostly failed) attempts at crystal-ball-gazing: In 1996, I played around with this one, set in 2005: A Vision of Consumer Payments Futures http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/VADER.html Some of the elements are fine, but the scenario as a whole can easily be re-dated to 2015 ... Re Tom's scenario below, as always some nice touches; but, if the nastier elements were to come about, I don't want to be there. Fortunately for me, the biometrics bits won't work, and the realities of competition and techno-unreliability are on freedom's side too, so I can maybe hang around for a bit longer. (Sorry). >--- >Networking 2016 > >Jim is not a happy man. His new Toyota Tarrago was late being >delivered from the dealer and now he will not be able to pick up the >kids in time. They grumbled about his choice of a third generation >hybrid combustion/electric vehicle: "Dad, why can't we have a proper >electric car like normal families?". They laughed at Jim's idea they >would be able to drive beyond the limited range of a battery car: >"But the electric highway reaches all the way to the other end of the >city now and if we want to go further where are you going to be able >to buy fossil fuel anyway?". > >Then there was the problem of getting the car to recognize his >communicator. In 2016 the mobile phone has shrunk to the size of a >piece of jewellery and is normally worn like the communicators in >"Star Trek Next Generation". Communicators act as car keys as well as >phones. But Jim had difficulty getting his old model communicator to >link to his new car. Eventually the car's security system recognized >the communicator, so Jim could simply walk up to the door and step >in. At least he had remembered to upload the configuration file of >the old car to the family data store. Downloaded into the new car >this allowed the details of the family's preferences to be preset. >When Jim walked up to the car the communicator opened the door and >the car, recognizing Jim, set the electric seat and steering wheel to >the right height, adjusted the mirrors, set the radio station. > >The car navigation system searched for an optimal route to the likely >journey for this time of day, checked the family schedule and >bulletins. All Jim needed to do was to confirm he wanted to go to the >school to pick up Sally. As Jim drove off the system advised that >there was a priority request from the household: could he pick up >some milk? But the navigation system estimated there was not >sufficient time to do this and pick up Sally on time, so Jim said >"no" to the system. > >Meanwhile Sally was running late. It was sports day and she was >dawdling chatting to her new friends from third grade. Like all >students Sally had her communicator with her. This is a simple >disposable model (children tend to loose them before the batteries go >flat). The unit can identify Sally by a signature phrase for voice >identification (children usually use an nursery rime) and verify bio >metrically using an accelerometer measuring her walking style. The >school system checked its heuristics to see if it was okay for Sally >to still be on school premises after hours. The system noticed Sally >was with another student and it wasn't too late, even so the system >checked with Sally's home system to see this was okay. If Sally was >with a stranger the system would have checked with Jim (by law all >visitors to a school are required to have an electronic visitors >pass, or their own communicator). > >Noticing Sally was running late, the car navigation system >recalculated the route and altered Jim there was time to pick up the >milk, collect Sally and get home. Jim accepted the suggestion >"confirm" and the car plotted the shortest route to the shop at this >time of day. The electronic pantry at Jim's place had checked and >found the usual shop was out of the milk Ellen, Jim's wife preferred, >so the navigation system picked the next nearest shop. > >Ellen has just left work. As she walked out of her office the company >system shut down her office computer, lights and air conditioning. >The system had made a reasonable guess that Ellen was on her way home >and had not just gone down the corridor. > >It had been a difficult day for Ellen at her PR office was handling >the Federal Government's proposed restrictions on indigenous land >use. Within minutes of the proposal being announced on the Prime >Minister's official "My Tube" web site, it had been transmitted to >remote indigenous communities across Australia. The secretariat of >the Indigenous Virtual Land Council contacted members by mobile >phone, WiMax and satellite for an emergency meeting. The meeting was >held thirty minutes later using "smart rooms" in communities across >Australia, including one on an offshore fish farm. The more remote >smartrooms are converted shipping containers equipped with solar >panels for power, LCD screens in the walls and a wireless link. These >are also used as flexible learning centers for the local schools. But >the most remote participant was the first Australian taikonaut aboard >the Chinese-European space station in low earth orbit. > >After thirty minutes debate the land council issued a statement >condemning the PM's proposals. The text, audio and video feeds went >out over the council's network a few minutes later. With in an hour, >as well as thousands of complaints to MPs, there were several >electronic writs served on the Federal Government for racial >discrimination and a detailed economic model showing the effect of a >threatened boycott by aboriginal artists (Australia's major export >earner). Ellen had to summon up as much support as she could via the >official ComNet and unofficial political channels. Even so the polls >taken a few minutes later indicated a lack of support for the >Government and it was likely the proposal would be radically changed >by the team working overnight from Bangalore. > >Meanwhile Prime Minister Julia Gillard was still aboard the >Australian Navy flag ship HMAS Canberra, meeting with US President >Hillary Clinton about the war on climate change. The PM was due to >record another "Vodcast to the Nation" in the aircraft carrier's >command and control smartroom (adapted from the technology used by >the virtual land council). She was then to attend the next session of >eParliment from the smartroom. > >--- > > >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 > >_______________________________________________ >Link mailing list >Link at mailman.anu.edu.au >http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From marghanita at ramin.com.au Thu Aug 9 10:29:22 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:29:22 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <20070808230958.GJ4898@taz.net.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808230958.GJ4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46BA5FE2.2090602@ramin.com.au> Craig Sanders wrote: > On Wed, Aug 08, 2007 at 08:52:22AM +1000, George Bray wrote: >> Will web standards ever evolve to the point where we Linkers have >> nothing to complain about? > > web standards aren't the problem. it's the idiot web designers who > ignore the standards. maybe the Internet, not paper, will be the primary record/communication medium with documents provided in HTML, and forrests will no longer cut down to make paper or room to grow biofuels. Online campaigns are already here see Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From rick at praxis.com.au Thu Aug 9 11:31:07 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:31:07 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <46BA6E5B.5030709@praxis.com.au> Tom Worthington wrote: >> Will web standards ever evolve to the point where we Linkers have >> nothing to complain about? > > No. But perhaps we can automate the complaints process, so the system > automatically drafts a comment on news items, then automatically writes > a self promotional reply from me, then an objection to that from ... ;-) Will us old fogeys still be on Link in ten years? Will there be an automated technology complaints system in ten years that will make us old Linkers obsolete? cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. -- Arthur C Clarke From rick at praxis.com.au Thu Aug 9 13:34:01 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:34:01 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <46BA5FE2.2090602@ramin.com.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808230958.GJ4898@taz.net.au> <46BA5FE2.2090602@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: <46BA8B29.2060804@praxis.com.au> Marghanita da Cruz wrote: > maybe the Internet, not paper, will be the primary record/communication > medium > with documents provided in HTML, and forrests will no longer cut down to > make > paper or room to grow biofuels. The problem with digital is preservation. I doubt we even have much left from, say, the 1960s on tape :( And even if you found such a tape, could you (a) physically read it and (b) logically decode it? Imagine a digital Principia being uncovered in some 320 years and being able to read it. We are a far far away from that goal. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. -- Arthur C Clarke From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Thu Aug 9 13:33:57 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 13:33:57 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: <46BA438C.3000704@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133701@cal066.act.gov.au> Pft. You're all too cynical. That ad demonstrates perfectly that the web provides a vehicle, exactly as rap music does, for the talentless, illiterate, and otherwise unemployable to make an honest living. Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au Thu Aug 9 13:47:42 2007 From: Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au (Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 13:47:42 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Data Preservation - Was The Next Ten Years [SEC=UNOFFICIAL] In-Reply-To: <46BA8B29.2060804@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <8DA55692F752634C955C1DDAF682629801C1B343@acexp007.portfolio.base> Rick wrote: < Rick Welykochy wrote: > Marghanita da Cruz wrote: > > > maybe the Internet, not paper, will be the primary record/communication > > medium > > with documents provided in HTML, and forrests will no longer cut down to > > make > > paper or room to grow biofuels > > The problem with digital is preservation=2E I doubt we even have much > left from, say, the 1960s on tape :( And even if you found such a tape, > could you (a) physically read it and (b) logically decode it? >=20 > Imagine a digital Principia being uncovered in some 320 years > and being able to read it=2E We are a far far away from that goalE I think to the role that certain monkish types played during the dark ages, preserving knowledge... Because in some ways, it will be the handful of hard core enthusiasts who are keen on preserving information from some particular area that will heavily influence the tone and nature of our times in the future=2E Hey, if ain't in the minutes, it wasn't said at the meeting! Consider the recent case of the fellow who has been uploading old Countdown music video clips that he'd receorded and kept on tapes in a pile in his bed room. For many of these clips, there was no other copy=2E An oldish, but not unreasonable paper to get the thinking juices flowing: Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Information - Jeff Rothenberg, RAND http://www.clir.org/PUBS/archives/ensuring.pdf Sylvano > > cheers > rickw > > > -- > _________________________________ > Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services > > This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a > little ironic since we may not have one=2E > -- Arthur C Clarke -- What we want from computer games? - Gnomon Publishing http://www.gnomon.com.au/cgi/svy/survey.pl?sc=CompGames From stephen at melbpc.org.au Thu Aug 9 20:20:47 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (Stephen Loosley) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:20:47 +1000 Subject: [LINK] IceTV and TiVo Message-ID: <20070809102125.5E91564023@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> Speaking of TV .. Nine loses electronic program guide case by Asher Moses August 9, 2007 - 10:44AM The Nine Network has lost its bid to retain control over how and when people consume its television shows in a landmark court judgment today. In a David and Goliath battle played out before the Federal Court, Nine alleged Sydney-based IceTV's electronic program guide (EPG) - an online TV guide subscribers can use to schedule television recordings from their computer, personal video recorder or mobile phone - breached its copyright. Nine claimed IceTV's guide was too similar to its own, but it is widely held that a a key concern was the potential for IceTV users to skip through advertisements in recorded shows. Handing down her judgment today, Justice Annabelle Bennett agreed Nine owned the copyright to its program guide but dismissed Nine's claim on the basis that IceTV "does not reproduce a substantial part of" Nine's guide. IceTV's general manager Matt Kossatz said "It's obviously a win for a small Aussie start-up against a large media company, but more importantly, it's a win for Aussie consumers," he said. Many viewed Nine's court action as an old media versus new media battle, which saw Nine fighting to maintain control of the consumption of its programs. IceTV - which has 6500 paying subscribers and several thousand free subscribers on the trial version - has always maintained its EPG did not infringe Nine copyright because it used publicly-available information and wrote its own program descriptions. It also claimed it was not responsible for subscribers using their computers or video recorders to make copies of television shows and skip ads because the IceTV service simply provided the recording software. The legal battle took an ironic turn last month when Free TV Australia, the industry body that represents commercial broadcasters, announced it had secured an agreement to make program guides available in electronic form to makers of personal video recorders. The guide will be used to schedule recordings through the TiVo box, which Seven plans to sell in Australia early next year. TiVo's functionality is similar to today's personal video recorders loaded with Ice TV's software, but ambiguous conditions laid down by Free TV Australia over the use of the program guide could greatly limit TiVo's potential. Julie Flynn, chief executive of Free TV Australia, said manufacturers who wish to use the new EPG must comply with "base-level requirements designed to protect copyright, protect the integrity of the program information and facilitate collection of ratings information". This would require manufacturers to alter their product for the Australian market and leave owners of current digital video recorders which don't meet the commercial broadcasters' requirements in the lurch. -- Cheers people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia . From Mike.Shearer at westnet.com.au Thu Aug 9 21:12:03 2007 From: Mike.Shearer at westnet.com.au (Mike Shearer) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:12:03 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <426644be35914191a232bea2ada82d69.info@gnomon.com.au> References: <426644be35914191a232bea2ada82d69.info@gnomon.com.au> Message-ID: <46BAF683.9050208@westnet.com.au> An interesting thread... I'm curious how many Linkers have read, or at least are aware of, Stafford Beer's book "Platform for change" published in 1975. It includes details of his management/control system for Allende's Chilean government which was way ahead of its time (and technology). Mike Shearer Townsville From gdt at gdt.id.au Thu Aug 9 22:42:37 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:12:37 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <1186663357.15875.54.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 08:55 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote: > The next ten years is easy. The Minister wanted to know what would > happen in the next 30 years. ;-) The year is 1977. Could you have anticipated: - the Internet probably not. - the spreadsheet unlikely, there was a fierce academic debate about computers and "knowledge workers" and the big guns were on the side of their complete replacement by artificial intelligence rather than augmenting them with productivity-focused computing support. - the ubiquity of digitisation probably not. Imagine arguing that converting things to 0 and 1s would catch on because this was convenient, cheaper and smaller than simple analog processing. - miniaturisation almost everyone got this. many people thought it would be a communications device too, although they would probably have been accused of too much science fiction. It's also interesting what hasn't changed. Transport changed immensely between 1947 and 1977, especially with containerisation. But it hardly changed at all 1977 to 2007. So it's possible that we might go through a similar era slower technical advance and of consolidation. We're at the limits in a lot of communications technolgoies now. Battery lifetimes now improve in single digit percentages, we can't build faster CPUs without water cooling, hard disk drive have only doubled in speed in the past ten years. > I have arranged for Kevin Miller, a green architect, to talk on how > to build environmentally friendly offices in Canberra > . I have > asked him, if IT people replace desktop PCs and phones with low power > thin clients > , > how will that change office design. One option is to eliminate mains > power to office desks and use Power Over Ethernet instead for > computers and task lighting. Using a low voltage does not itself save > power (it is less efficient than mains power), but it would stop > office workers using power hungry devices. POE is a tad ambitious. That gives you 18W per socket. That's currently not enough for a CPU and LED-backlit screen, but it's tantalisingly close. The "less efficient that mains power" depends were you get your power from. -48VDC is a natural match to battery systems, and thus to solar systems. If you run solar power through an inverter and then a rectifier (in the PC, remember the aim is to get 12VDC and 5VDC for the motherboard) you are wasting a about 10% of the power on needless conversion to AC. Also, AC power supplies are very inefficient. There's a move in the US called "80plus" to get PC rectifier performance above 80%. I suppose my question is -- why do you think there will still be an office as we know it today? With better communications technologies and higher travel expenses and time why won't those how can do work from home. We've already seen the move by a lot of workers to establish a second office at home. I'm suggesting that this will become the primary office for a lot of people. From gdt at gdt.id.au Thu Aug 9 22:12:16 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:42:16 +0930 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46BA4AA5.1010608@lannet.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA4AA5.1010608@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <1186661536.15875.27.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > Now that the Beeb are releasing a ton of their old stuff on the net, why > can't this be picked up by ABC or SBS - is there a copyright issue? The BBC take the view that this content should be available for a limited time to those that paid their UK television license fee. Everyone else can continue to pay. > That would be an excellent idea for another complete channel and > should be being pushed by AVCC (or whatever they are these days) This content is being offered via the Internet, not via Pay TV. Makes sense to use an infrastructure that the universities and their students have today. Jan wrote: > there must be a lot of programming from the hundreds of cable > stations in the US that aren't being shown here that could be. Yes and no. I looked at getting a direct feed from WGBH into AARNet (WGBH is the US Public Broadcasting System affiliate in Boston, and maker of some of the finest educational TV in the world). The problem is that WGBH make a substantial amount of money from sales to Australian public and commercial TV. They were obviously concerned that this might disappear, especially if we also ran a time-lagged channel. To their credit they were willing to forgo this revenue if we were to establish a PBS affiliate in Australia. I haven't picked this up again since my last visit to the US, since it seems a bit of a hopeless case for me to pursue -- I'm not in a position to raise the necessary $m funding, nor have enough TV industry experience to kick off a TV station, commission works, etc. Cheers, Glen From rick at praxis.com.au Fri Aug 10 00:41:01 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:41:01 +1000 Subject: [LINK] IceTV and TiVo In-Reply-To: <20070809102125.5E91564023@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070809102125.5E91564023@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <46BB277D.7030802@praxis.com.au> Stephen Loosley wrote: > Speaking of TV .. > Nine loses electronic program guide case > by Asher Moses > August 9, 2007 - 10:44AM > [SNIP] > Julie Flynn, chief executive of Free TV Australia, said manufacturers who wish to use the new EPG must comply with "base-level requirements designed to protect copyright, protect the integrity of the program information and facilitate collection of ratings information". > This would require manufacturers to alter their product for the Australian market and leave owners of current digital video recorders which don't meet the commercial broadcasters' requirements in the lurch. Erm ... as an owner of a pvr that uses an EPG, I doubt I'll be taking any action to conform to some future regulations from Free TV. Retroactive regulating is just so unAustralian, don't you think? Lurch? cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. -- Arthur C Clarke From stephen at melbpc.org.au Fri Aug 10 03:17:15 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 17:17:15 GMT Subject: [LINK] The US and analog tv whitespace Message-ID: <20070809171715.E71D417000@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> FCC rejects 'white space' device backed by Google, HP, Intel Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal 2:49 PM PDT Wednesday, August 8, 2007 A prototype device supported by companies like Google Inc., Hewlett- Packard Co., and Intel Corp. was criticized in a report by the Federal Communications Commission, which warns that the device could cause interference and cannot reliably detect unused TV spectrum. Mountain View-based Google is part of the White Space Coalition along with companies that include Palo Alto-based HP, Santa Clara-based Intel, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. and Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Inc. The group said the device could be used to beam high-speed Internet service over unused television airwaves, and that it believes the spectrum can be used without resulting interference to wireless signals and television. The coalition said it plans to work with the FCC to identify the problems. The companies say that white space, or the unlicensed and unused TV airwaves, could be used to make Internet service accessible and affordable, particularly in rural areas. -- 'White Spaces Coalition' >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The White Spaces Coalition consists of eight large technology companies that plan on delivering high speed (broadband) internet access to consumers via existing unused analog television frequencies. The coalition claims that broadband speeds for "single-user applications" could reach 50 to 100 MBps [1] The group includes Microsoft, Google, Dell, HP, Intel, Philips, Earthlink, and Samsung. Senate decision Analog television broadcasts, which operate between the 54MHz and 698MHz television frequencies, are slated to cease operating per a United States Senate mandate in February 2009. This is also the timetable that the white space coalition has set to possibly begin offering wireless broadband services to consumers. The delay allows enough time for the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to test the technology and make sure that it does not interfere with existing television broadcasts. S Similar technologies could be used worldwide as much of the core technology is already in place. It was thought in 2005 that the value of the entire U.S. analog television spectrum could reach more than $20 billion at government auction. The White Spaces Coalition formed in late 2006[citation needed], soon after the Senate set the date to cease analog broadcasts. Unfortunately, many companies (like those making wireless audio systems) that already use these TV bands have to now grapple with the fact that their wireless PA systems will no longer function properly if unlicensed devices are to now be able to operate within the same spectrum. Solutions at all major companies are currently pushing for deployment of their new products by Feb. 2009. Early Developments The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Engineering and Technology released a report dated July 31, 2007 with results from its investigation of two preliminary devices submitted. The report concluded that the devices did not reliably sense the presence of television transmissions or other incumbent users, hence are not acceptable for use in their current state and no further testing was deemed necessary. However, it must be noted that these two devices are only considered prototypes and that they were be used as a benchmark for future developments. -- Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From brendansweb at optusnet.com.au Fri Aug 10 08:20:25 2007 From: brendansweb at optusnet.com.au (Brendan Scott) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:20:25 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <1186663357.15875.54.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> <1186663357.15875.54.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <46BB9329.30304@optusnet.com.au> Glen Turner wrote: > On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 08:55 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote: > I suppose my question is -- why do you think there will still be > an office as we know it today? With better communications > technologies and higher travel expenses and time why won't those > how can do work from home. > > We've already seen the move by a lot of workers to establish a > second office at home. I'm suggesting that this will become the > primary office for a lot of people. Without saying that won't happen, there is the issue of the need of most people for social interaction, so I am not convinced about this. Brendan From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Fri Aug 10 08:26:33 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:26:33 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <1186661536.15875.27.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA4AA5.1010608@lannet.com.au> <1186661536.15875.27.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <61fg7n$4tpuva@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 10:12 PM 9/08/2007, Glen Turner wrote: > > That would be an excellent idea for another complete channel and > > should be being pushed by AVCC (or whatever they are these days) > >This content is being offered via the Internet, not via Pay TV. >Makes sense to use an infrastructure that the universities and >their students have today. clarification again> the issue is programming new digital free to air channels to convince take-up of digital free to air, not internet or pay tv. The reason cable took off in the US is because of the program selection. It's like a TV supermarket, even with commercials. So why can't a wireless niche channel service work here? The reason has been the 'dilution' of the advertising value of eyes on channels. Is this still true? Congrats on pursuing GBH, Glen. In the day, I used to serve on program review panels for various educational series producers, the types of projects that were used for the open learning uni courses. They were mostly for the Annenberg Foundation and various PBS/CPB stations. I've actually seen the set of Mr Rogers' Neighborhood! That was made in Pittsburg if my memory serves. Anyway, net TV is the next big thing only if there affordable 'data traffic' capacity. I don't think folks will pay for or put up with the streaming video quality. Downloads, yes, but not for an unreasonable charge. Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From jwhit at janwhitaker.com Fri Aug 10 08:31:15 2007 From: jwhit at janwhitaker.com (Jan Whitaker) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:31:15 +1000 Subject: [LINK] It's baaack---net filtering Message-ID: <61fg7n$4tq215@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> It must be an election year. The government (and Stephen Conroy) is 'saving' children all over the place! Oh! My! Lock them up! . How in the world will they provide DUAL -DSL to homes to provide a 'safe' channel for the kids and a real channel for the >16s? Or will everyone in the family be 'saved'? I'm sure the audience spoken to last night will be happy with the 'one size fits all' version, so I guess that means that the ISPs will be required to spend the pittance they get of the shared $40mill to provide another unwanted/unused service option ('clean' channels) so that a minority can be bought for an election. How crass is that in a public policy sense? Of course, why should expect any different? Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Fri Aug 10 09:02:13 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:02:13 +1000 Subject: Beer [Was Re: [LINK] The Next Ten Years] In-Reply-To: <46BAF683.9050208@westnet.com.au> References: <426644be35914191a232bea2ada82d69.info@gnomon.com.au> <46BAF683.9050208@westnet.com.au> Message-ID: At 21:12 +1000 9/8/07, Mike Shearer wrote: >I'm curious how many Linkers have read, or at least are aware of, >Stafford Beer's book "Platform for change" published in 1975. It >includes details of his management/control system for Allende's >Chilean government which was way ahead of its time (and technology). The one with the different-coloured pages? -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From ivan at itrundle.com Fri Aug 10 09:14:20 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:14:20 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <46BB9329.30304@optusnet.com.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> <1186663357.15875.54.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> <46BB9329.30304@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: On 10/08/2007, at 8:20 AM, Brendan Scott wrote: > Glen Turner wrote: >> On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 08:55 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote: > >> I suppose my question is -- why do you think there will still be >> an office as we know it today? With better communications >> technologies and higher travel expenses and time why won't those >> how can do work from home. Another consideration is reducing CO2 output, and infrastructure costs to support our desire to travel to the office every day - a relatively new concept since the beginning of the industrial revolution. >> >> We've already seen the move by a lot of workers to establish a >> second office at home. I'm suggesting that this will become the >> primary office for a lot of people. > > Without saying that won't happen, there is the issue of the need of > most people for social interaction, so I am not convinced about this. Robust bandwidth can solve a lot of the office communication problems, but it's by no means perfect. I work in a team who often leave communication channels open (we work in four or five different locations) so that 'office noise' can permeate the background, but nothing beats a face-to-face interaction. The open channel usually consists of leaving cameras with microphones on and rolling (and requires good bandwidth to do so). It's not just for gossip and 'water-cooler' conversations, either, but often the impromptu conversations that shape business direction, or identify issues of concern. Even overhearing someone else's phone conversations in passing can help to resolve problems, or identify new business opportunities. Casual, impromptu, extemporaneous, and even serendipitous business (not just social) interaction is as important and often ignored - and tele-commuting does not easily resolve those issues. That aside, I'm working from my comfy armchair today, and endeavour to minimise my carbon footprint by not travelling to work at least 25% of the time. I know of many others who do the same, and are (not surprisingly) part of a network of people who communicate via their laptop - with built-in camera, skype, chat, e-mail, voice mail, SMS and even regular mobile phone calls (I make and answer mobile calls through my laptop's microphone and speakers). Indeed, my 'office' has shrunk to the point of being the metal and plastic box that sits on my lap. iT From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 10 09:02:10 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:02:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <46BB9329.30304@optusnet.com.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> <1186663357.15875.54.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> <46BB9329.30304@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <46BB9CF2.7070405@ramin.com.au> Brendan Scott wrote: > Glen Turner wrote: >> On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 08:55 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote: > >> I suppose my question is -- why do you think there will still be >> an office as we know it today? With better communications >> technologies and higher travel expenses and time why won't those >> how can do work from home. >> >> We've already seen the move by a lot of workers to establish a >> second office at home. I'm suggesting that this will become the >> primary office for a lot of people. > > Without saying that won't happen, there is the issue of the need of most people for social interaction, so I am not convinced about this. > I agree with Brendan about the role of workplaces providing a key place of social interaction and identity - particularly for men. I don't think this is much different between the coal miners, timber cutters or business executives. Women tend to adjust better to new environments - this is an observation, but I would guess would be supported by the correlation between retirement and death/major heart attacks or death of a wife followed by death of a husband. This might give a clue into why JWH is sticking around. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 10 09:13:51 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:13:51 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <1186663357.15875.54.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <20070808231951.4A6C8239A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> <1186663357.15875.54.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <46BB9FAF.3080805@ramin.com.au> Glen Turner wrote: > On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 08:55 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote: >> The next ten years is easy. The Minister wanted to know what would >> happen in the next 30 years. ;-) > > The year is 1977. Could you have anticipated: > - the Internet > probably not. > - the spreadsheet > unlikely, there was a fierce academic debate about > computers and "knowledge workers" and the big guns > were on the side of their complete replacement by > artificial intelligence rather than augmenting them > with productivity-focused computing support. In 1982, in my first job, I was still programming the Orani Econometric model of the Australian Economy in FORTRAN, and programming memory management on a CYBER 76...boy was the the spreadsheet long overdue. > We're at the limits in a lot of communications technolgoies > now. Battery lifetimes now improve in single digit percentages, > we can't build faster CPUs without water cooling, hard disk > drive have only doubled in speed in the past ten years. I think you are separating the engineering from the application -to my mind, technology is the combination of both. I was going to guess that cross language communication would happen. Interpreters would become available to the ordinary person. The following Courtesy of (note following lines left my computer in arabic, chinese,russian scripts) > > ????? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ????? ??????????? ?? ???? ?? ???????. ??? ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ??????? ?????. ????????? ????? ????? ???? ????. > > ??????????,?????????????.??????????????????.???????????? > > ?????, ??? ?? ????????? ??????????? ?????????? ?????????? ???????? ?????????. ? ????????? ??????????, ??? ????? ???? ?????????, ??? ??????????. ??????????? ?????? ????????? ??? ???????? ????????. and for good measure maybe even Hindi or given the significance of Bangalore - Kanada Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From ivan at itrundle.com Fri Aug 10 09:17:16 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:17:16 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blocking URL spam servers Message-ID: <29D9D494-315D-42AF-9B85-B75EEDF7DDBF@itrundle.com> Study finds weak link in spam business (Jeff Hecht, NewScientistTech) A study of more than a million spam emails has revealed a weak link in the junk email business. It shows that the web links contained in many spam messages point to just a handful of servers. So, in theory, disabling or blocking these servers could help make spamming a less profitable business. Instead of focusing on filtering or blocking spam at the inbox, Geoff Voelker and Chris Fleizach at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) examined the infrastructure behind spam instead. The pair studied more than a million spam messages, collected over a single week in 2006, which advertised 2334 distinct companies, ranging from businesses selling legal products to financial scamming sites. The messages came from a wide range of sources, most likely PCs infected with a computer virus and remotely used to churn out spam (see Web browsers are new frontline in internet war). But when the UCSD team followed web links in each spam message, they found that 94% directed traffic to a single web server. Furthermore, 57% led to a single host based in the US. Stemming the tide This represents a potential vulnerability in the spam business, Fleizach says, who presented the research at the USENIX Security Symposium in Boston, US, on 9 August. He notes that conventional blacklisting - blocking the machines that send out spam - only goes so far. Partly because spammers generated random "from" addresses, more than 93% of which are used only once. "This excellent paper points at a new approach for making life harder for spammers," adds Nathaniel Borenstein, IBM's chief anti-spam and open strategist. "It's not going to stop the spammers completely, but it could slow them down for a while, and that's no small achievement." The links analysed by the UCSD team reveal other facts about the spam business. For example, only 30% of messages contained active web link (compared to 85% in 2005). Much of the rest was so-called "pump and dump" spam, aimed at hiking the value of specific stocks. Additionally, more than half of the messages carried a virus designed to infect computers so that they would send out Many links contain extra information to identify that identifies the spam sender, who then receives a commission for the traffic they generate. http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn12449&feedId=tech_rss20 iT From slc at publicus.net Fri Aug 10 09:19:37 2007 From: slc at publicus.net (Steven Clift) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 18:19:37 -0500 Subject: [LINK] Looking for a bold Australian local community ... Message-ID: <06c501c7dadb$c174f8b0$6600a8c0@publicus> ... interested in joining E-Democracy.Org's global network of _local_ Issues Forums. This is a citizen-led volunteer-based sustainable model, but government or other funding can make it happen more quickly. For those I've met on past speaking trips, you may recall the "squirrel story." We now have a forum for Canterbury including Christchurch in New Zealand and our UK network continues to grow. We've also just received a grant to expand into three rural communities in Minnesota. Why not an Issues Forum for a remote region of Australia or a neighbourhood in Sydney? Issues Forum details, including a short video: http://e-democracy.org/if We've just released a strategic plan that should give you a sense of where we are going: http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/101 In a few years I'd like to see dozens of vibrant Issues Forums (which combine an e-list, web forum, a multi-editor blog, and file sharing in one unified online space with an integrated standards-based GPL open source platform) across Australia showing the rest of the world how to do it right. Interested in learning more? E-mail us: team at e-democracy.org Cheers, Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steven Clift - clift at publicus.net Web: http://publicus.net Blog: http://dowire.org/notes NGO: http://e-democracy.org Replies to slc@ may be missed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 10 09:20:34 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:20:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <1186661536.15875.27.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA4AA5.1010608@lannet.com.au> <1186661536.15875.27.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <46BBA142.3030707@ramin.com.au> Glen Turner wrote: > I haven't picked this up again since my last visit to the > US, since it seems a bit of a hopeless case for me to > pursue -- I'm not in a position to raise the necessary > $m funding, nor have enough TV industry experience to > kick off a TV station, commission works, etc. The NSW Government Digital station is a bit sad - most of the content seems to be Surf Watch. [Howard, perhaps you could contact them and ask why the good citizens of Albury are missing out - ] As a theatre buff, I would love to see more theatre even for educational purposes - ie not full productions (those are best seen live) - but the business models/licensing still has to be worked out. One of the interesting snippets I came across on the new community channel in NSW is golf tips/coaching - again with golf I prefer playing than watching. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 10 09:24:34 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:24:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] IceTV and TiVo In-Reply-To: <46BB277D.7030802@praxis.com.au> References: <20070809102125.5E91564023@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> <46BB277D.7030802@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <46BBA232.7000000@ramin.com.au> Rick Welykochy wrote: > Stephen Loosley wrote: > >> Speaking of TV .. >> Nine loses electronic program guide case >> by Asher Moses >> August 9, 2007 - 10:44AM >> >> > [SNIP] >> Julie Flynn, chief executive of Free TV Australia, said manufacturers >> who wish to use the new EPG must comply with "base-level requirements >> designed to protect copyright, protect the integrity of the program >> information and facilitate collection of ratings information". >> This would require manufacturers to alter their product for the >> Australian market and leave owners of current digital video recorders >> which don't meet the commercial broadcasters' requirements in the lurch. > > Erm ... as an owner of a pvr that uses an EPG, I doubt I'll > be taking any action to conform to some future regulations > from Free TV. Retroactive regulating is just so unAustralian, > don't you think? > and from 07/26/07 00:00 "TEN chief executive Grant Blackley has poured cold water on suggestions Ten will sign a deal for the TiVO video recorder." m -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Thu Aug 9 15:35:02 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:35:02 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <7.1.0.9.0.20070808122515.01c51c48@tomw.net.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <7.1.0.9.0.20070808122515.01c51c48@tomw.net.au> Message-ID: <20070809234836.213381B714@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 08:55 AM 9/08/2007, I wrote: >... Meanwhile Prime Minister Julia Gillard was still aboard the >Australian Navy flag ship HMAS Canberra, meeting with US President >Hillary Clinton about the war on climate change. ... I should have pointed out that the idea of President Hillary Clinton fighting a war comes from John Burmingham's future history trilogy. HMAS Canberra will actually be in service by 2016: Federal Cabinet recently approved its construction in Spain and Australia. The ship is planned to have containerized command and control facilities on board. These will look much like a de-mountable classroom, with video screens on the walls. ps: The Navy is not yet admitting HMAS Canberra is an aircraft carrier, despite the ship's most prominent feature being a "ski jump" on the front for Harrier and F-35 SVTOL jets. 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 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Tue Aug 7 10:09:08 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:09:08 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Online journalism with Crikey.com founder, Canberra, 29 August 2007 Message-ID: <20070809234839.B58231B714@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Recommended: >Online journalism and its impact on traditional media > >The internet revolution has been the greatest structural shock to >hit the mainstream media since the introduction of television. >Crikey.com founder Stephen Mayne will assess how online journalism >is fundamentally changing traditional media and whether any of the >so-called 'user-generated content' of Web 2.0 should even be called >journalism. Whilst some media companies are now embracing the >internet as an opportunity and dominating the space, many are >feeling seriously threatened. And with such an extraordinary >fragmentation and proliferation of information in cyberspace, what >is the role of libraries in recording journalism's traditional >'first draft of history approach' to the news as it unfolds? > >Date: 29 August 2007 >Time: 12.30 to 13.30 >Venue: Library Theatre >Entry: Free > >The speaker, Stephen Mayne, will be introduced by Michele Huston, >Director Web Publishing, National Library of Australia. > >Bobby Graham >Web Content Manager >Web Publishing Branch, IT Division >National Library of Australia >Tel: +61 2 6262 1542 >www.nla.gov.au > 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 From stil at stilgherrian.com Fri Aug 10 10:21:12 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:21:12 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blocking URL spam servers In-Reply-To: <29D9D494-315D-42AF-9B85-B75EEDF7DDBF@itrundle.com> Message-ID: On 10/8/07 9:17 AM, "Ivan Trundle" wrote: > But when the > UCSD team followed web links in each spam message, they found that > 94% directed traffic to a single web server. Furthermore, 57% led to > a single host based in the US. Ah, yes... And as soon as the anti-spam forces block that set of servers, the spammers will use distributed networks of servers to deliver the web-based content. Since they're already using automated systems to find and infect vulnerable computers to send the spam, it should be a straightforward network programming task to similarly automate the creation of many web servers. Whack-a-Mole comes to mind... Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From josh at email.nu Fri Aug 10 10:29:59 2007 From: josh at email.nu (Josh Rowe) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:29:59 +1000 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney Message-ID: <20070810002959.GA9692@whim.sanctum.com.au> Linkers, The auDA board will meet on Monday in Sydney. This meeting is open to the public. Here are the details: Time: 10:00 AM Date: 13 August 2007 Location: Maddocks Lawyers, Angel Place, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney Details: Notice of 2007 Extraordinary General Meeting http://www.auda.org.au/agm/egm2007-notice/ auDA Board Meeting Agenda - 13 August 2007 http://www.auda.org.au/meetings/agenda-13082007/ " ... auDA Board Meeting - 13 August 2007 Agenda 1. Confirmation of Agenda 2. Apologies 3. Continuous Disclosure 4. Confirmation of June 2007 Minutes 5. EGM Outcomes 6. Policy Development - 2007 Names Policy Panel report 7. Finance Report 8. CEO Report 9. auDA Foundation Report 10. auCD Report 11. 2007 AGM 12. Membership 13. Board Correspondence 14. Other Business 15. Next Meeting - Monday 15 October - Maddocks, Melbourne ... " Regards Josh -- http://josh.id.au/ From grove at zeta.org.au Fri Aug 10 10:59:07 2007 From: grove at zeta.org.au (grove at zeta.org.au) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:59:07 +1000 (EST) Subject: [LINK] It's baaack---net filtering In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4tq215@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <61fg7n$4tq215@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, Jan Whitaker wrote: > It must be an election year. The government (and Stephen Conroy) is 'saving' > children all over the place! Oh! My! Lock them up! is falling, says Chicken Little>. > > How in the world will they provide DUAL -DSL to homes to provide a 'safe' > channel for the kids and a real channel for the >16s? IPv6 will let you do this. You could even assign an IP address to a login session. The technology is not quite there yet, but expect an explosion of purposes for IPv6 when it finally comes (soon....). I know what you mean about the chicken little story, though.... rachel -- Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia grove at zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html Will you tolerate this? Return Hew Raymond Griffiths now... "Who do you trust?" - John W Howard From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Fri Aug 10 11:18:16 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:18:16 +1000 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney In-Reply-To: <20070810002959.GA9692@whim.sanctum.com.au> References: <20070810002959.GA9692@whim.sanctum.com.au> Message-ID: At 10:29 +1000 10/8/07, Josh Rowe wrote: >The auDA board will meet on Monday in Sydney. This meeting is open >to the public. >Time: 10:00 AM >Date: 13 August 2007 >Location: Maddocks Lawyers, Angel Place, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney >Notice of 2007 Extraordinary General Meeting >http://www.auda.org.au/agm/egm2007-notice/ >auDA Board Meeting Agenda - 13 August 2007 >http://www.auda.org.au/meetings/agenda-13082007/ >" ... >auDA Board Meeting - 13 August 2007 >Agenda >6. Policy Development > - 2007 Names Policy Panel report But no link is provided to the report, or even the Exec Summary, nor is any clue given about what the report contains. I trust that at least the Board members have some attachments, to that they can prepare for the meeting. http://www.auda.org.au/2007npp/2007npp-index/ Many linkers will doubtless appreciate the URL when the document becomes available. Thanks Josh! -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From rick at praxis.com.au Fri Aug 10 11:21:17 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:21:17 +1000 Subject: [LINK] It's baaack---net filtering In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4tq215@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <61fg7n$4tq215@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <46BBBD8D.9080902@praxis.com.au> Jan Whitaker wrote: > It must be an election year. The government (and Stephen Conroy) is > 'saving' children all over the place! Oh! My! Lock them up! > . > > How in the world will they provide DUAL -DSL to homes to provide a > 'safe' channel for the kids and a real channel for the >16s? Or will > everyone in the family be 'saved'? I'm sure the audience spoken to last > night will be happy with the 'one size fits all' version, so I guess > that means that the ISPs will be required to spend the pittance they get > of the shared $40mill to provide another unwanted/unused service option > ('clean' channels) so that a minority can be bought for an election. Let's not forget that *any* system of filtering is most easily circumvented by young computer savvy kids. This has been demonstrated time and time again. It is wrong to assume that net filtering systems can be maintained in a secure manner by parents. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. -- Arthur C Clarke From drose at nla.gov.au Fri Aug 10 11:21:26 2007 From: drose at nla.gov.au (Daniel Rose) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:21:26 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <46BBBD96.4040604@nla.gov.au> Jan Whitaker wrote: > At 11:50 AM 8/08/2007, Howard Lowndes wrote: >> What we need is for the commercial stations to be permitted to >> multi-channel, and for there to be more (or even any would be nice) >> quality content. > > Makes me wonder if the free to air or the gubmint have nudge wink deals > with Foxtel to not do this. I would love a couple more channel types: > old b&w movies > cartoons [rocky and bullwinkle, looney tunes, etc] > weather channel, even if it were just a graphic with updates of > satellite imagery > a clock > educational programs (there are quite a few of those available, used to > be on Open Learning) > arts and music > SBS carries a certain amount of "weird" or cult programming; south park and drawn together, old zombie movies, foreign war films and stuff like "Rosencrantz and Guildenstein are dead". I remember ~15 years ago they had a show on Saturdays called Buzz which was full of heavy concepts and general "wow, man, yeah!" stuff, and they've run some good new years eve lineups too. Along with heavy documentries like "the cutting edge", this is the only pay tv I'd pay for; as essentially it's the category I've seen with the least commercial/marketing influence on the programming. However, I suspect that the audience for sport or business channels is somewhat larger. If we can have channels like hallmark, disney and nikelodeon, I'd like to see something like this. From tony at tony-barry.emu.id.au Fri Aug 10 11:27:34 2007 From: tony at tony-barry.emu.id.au (Antony Barry) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:27:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Re: The Next Ten Years In-Reply-To: <46BBB070.4000102@lannet.com.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <7.1.0.9.0.20070808122515.01c51c48@tomw.net.au> <20070809234836.213381B714@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> <46BBB070.4000102@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <9D9718D1-067A-4ED9-A286-C23778F367E9@tony-barry.emu.id.au> On 10/08/2007, at 10:25 AM, Howard Lowndes wrote: > She was Ark Royal 5 and I was struck by how much smaller she was > than Ark Royal 3 which I saw as a kid anchored off Weymouth in the > English Channel. I remember a huge wall near my first primary school. It was too high to climb. Strangely when I returned 40 years later it had shrunk to a height I could sit on. The huge grasshoppers and cicadas I used to catch as a boy seem to have gone extinct. Only small species are left. Perhaps they have evolved to a smaller size. :-) Tony phone : 02 6241 7659 mobile: 04 1242 0397 -- ~| mailto: tony at Tony-Barry.emu.id.au -- \@ or tony.barry at alianet.alia.org.au -- _\\/\% http://tony-barry.emu.id.au GT3 ____(*)__(*)___ Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Restore From kauer at biplane.com.au Fri Aug 10 11:46:59 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:46:59 +1000 Subject: [LINK] It's baaack---net filtering In-Reply-To: <46BBBD8D.9080902@praxis.com.au> References: <61fg7n$4tq215@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BBBD8D.9080902@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <1186710419.27562.63.camel@karl> On Fri, 2007-08-10 at 11:21 +1000, Rick Welykochy wrote: > It is wrong to assume that net filtering systems can be maintained > in a secure manner by parents. "Kids interpret censorship as failure and route around it" :-) -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From cas at taz.net.au Fri Aug 10 11:58:29 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:58:29 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46BA6C8E.5000300@lannet.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> <46BA5690.1020602@ramin.com.au> <46BA6C8E.5000300@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070810015829.GK4898@taz.net.au> On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 11:23:26AM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: >> Sports fans do subscribe to Foxtel cable. > > Well, we did nearly lose the cricket of free to air, and as for the > golf... wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no sport at all on FTA, not even the 10-15 minutes that it wastes on the news each night? no football of any kind, no tennis, no cricket, no interviews with not-quite-retarded thugs whose claim to fame is that they can kick a ball or ride a bike or swim etc, no commonwealth games, and bliss! no olympics. craig -- craig sanders From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Fri Aug 10 11:52:40 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:52:40 +1000 Subject: [LINK] more on evoting hacking Message-ID: <61fg7n$4tugc0@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> >Scientists Hack Voting Machines to Prove Tech Weaknesses >http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072807Y.shtml >"Computer scientists from California universities have hacked into >three electronic voting systems used in California and elsewhere in >the nation and found several ways in which vote totals could >potentially be altered, according to reports released yesterday by >the state," reports Christopher Drew in Saturday's edition of the >New York Times. > >Florida Voting Machines Can Be Hacked >http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080107J.shtml >Marc Caputo reports for The Miami Herald, "Reversing an unofficial >policy of denial, the Florida Secretary of State's office has >conducted an elections study that confirmed Tuesday what a maverick >voting chief discovered nearly two years ago: Insider computer >hackers can change votes without a trace on Diebold optical-scan machines." Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 10 12:19:54 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 12:19:54 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <20070810015829.GK4898@taz.net.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> <46BA5690.1020602@ramin.com.au> <46BA6C8E.5000300@lannet.com.au> <20070810015829.GK4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46BBCB4A.4010608@ramin.com.au> Craig Sanders wrote: > On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 11:23:26AM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: >>> Sports fans do subscribe to Foxtel cable. >> Well, we did nearly lose the cricket of free to air, and as for the >> golf... > > wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no sport at all on FTA, not even > the 10-15 minutes that it wastes on the news each night? no football of > any kind, no tennis, no cricket, no interviews with not-quite-retarded > thugs whose claim to fame is that they can kick a ball or ride a bike or > swim etc, no commonwealth games, and bliss! no olympics. > No chance! Radio National was polluted a few years ago, and as far as I can tell, SBS at 6.30om makes no distinction. M -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Fri Aug 10 12:32:14 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 12:32:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Open Source Alternative to the iPhone, Canberra, 15 August 2007 In-Reply-To: <7.1.0.9.0.20070808122515.01c51c48@tomw.net.au> References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <7.1.0.9.0.20070808122515.01c51c48@tomw.net.au> Message-ID: <20070810024247.2DA25112CE@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 08:55 AM 9/08/2007, I wrote (was: "The Next Ten Years"): >... In the nearer term we will have iPhone type devices, but running >open source Linux software. I am seeing if we can have a >demonstration of one of these in Canberra next week. ... Linkers are invited: --- Australian Computer Society Green IT Special Interest Group In Conjunction with the ACS SQA SIG August Canberra Meeting Topic: Open Source Alternative to the iPhoneShayne Flint Speaker: Dr. Shayne Flint, Department of Computer Science, The Australian National University Venue: Australian National University, Room N101, Computer Science Building, North Road, Canberra Date: Wednesday 15 August 2007 Time: 5:30pm drinks/nibbles for presentation 6pm-7pm Event Prices: Free. Registration: Not required Announcement: http://education.acs.org.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=3636 Summary Dr. Flint will demonstrate the software development kit for the OpenMoko "Open Source" mobile phone. While the Apple iPhone has been getting media attention, another touch phone has been quietly under development by the Linux community and will be first to market in Australia. OpenMoko is set to revolutionize mobile communications by providing the power of Linux in a hand held touch screen device. Shayne will discuss some of the software engineering projects being formulated for use with the phones location sensitive and wireless communications features. ANU Mobile Web ServiceShayne will use the OpenMoko device to demonstrate the ANU's new "ANU Mobile" web service, which has just been released. Tom Worthington, Chair of the ACS Green IT Group, backs the move to mobiles, arguing that low power handheld devices with open access applications can be used to make a positive contribution to environmental sustainability. Power hungry desktop computers can in many cases be replaced with mobile devices. Some trips can be replaced with ad-hoc wireless meetings, using Web 2.0 "social networking" making further fossil fuel savings. About the Speaker Dr Shayne Flint is a Senior Lecturerat the Department of Computer Science, Australian National University, where he teaches Software Engineering. Dr. Flint is the originator of Aspect-Oriented Thinking, an approach that systematically develops, manages and integrates the knowledge and expertise of many disciplines to develop complex software systems. About ACS Green IT The ICT Environmental Sustainability Group ("Green IT") brings together professionals interested in balancing economic and environmental aspects of information technology and telecommunications. It is a special interest group of the Australian Computer Society. The group aims to hold joint meetings with other professional bodies interested in technology, the environment and sustainability. Sign up now to get updates on ICT and the environment. --- 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 From brd at iimetro.com.au Fri Aug 10 14:31:42 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:31:42 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Britain begins ID procurement Message-ID: <46BBEA2E.9070005@iimetro.com.au> Technically the UK project is a lot simpler than the Australian Access Card system. From what I can tell from publicly available documents on both schemes, the UK ID card is read only and will not be updated when someone reads the card. This is unlike the Access Card system where it is proposed that every time the card is used, there is the opportunity to update card data from the back-end applications - a much more difficult technical problem than just reading static data off a smart card. The procurement document, which is full of EU bureaucratic speak, is at https://homeoffice.bravosolution.com/esop/toolkit/notice/public/tender.do?caller=0&tenderId=tender_17806 Britain begins ID procurement Michael Holden in London August 10, 2007 Australian IT http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22220727-24169,00.html BRITAIN has launched the process to choose companies to run its multi-billion-pound national identity card scheme, the world's most ambitious biometric project. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government described the move as "another milestone" towards the controversial compulsory scheme, which is expected to cost more than ?5 billion ($12 billion) over the next decade. Ministers say the cards carrying fingerprint, iris and face-recognition technology, are vital to fight terrorism, serious organised crime and illegal immigration. The scheme, due to be rolled out from 2009, would see Britons issued with ID cards for the first time since they were abolished after World War II. "This is a groundbreaking project, with the potential for huge benefits for individuals and for the nation," Home Office Minister Meg Hillier said. "As the Framework Procurement published today makes clear, we are committed to introducing the scheme carefully and securely, minimising both cost and risk." The notice, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, invites firms to bid for the supply and maintenance of computer systems and the issuing of the cards themselves. Media reports said five firms would be chosen for the project with the largest contracts said to be worth up to ?500 million. The cards, which will involve one of the world's largest IT schemes, have drawn much criticism, with opponents saying they will infringe civil rights and be a costly flop. The opposition Conservative Party warned potential bidders on Thursday that it would scrap the scheme if it wins the next election. "This project will do nothing to improve our security," said David Davis, the Conservative home affairs spokesman. "In fact independent experts like Microsoft and the LSE (London School of Economics) have pointed out that it could well make our security worse while costing the tax payer ?20 billion in the process." ID cards are used in about a dozen European Union countries but are not always compulsory and do not carry as much data as those planned for Britain. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Fri Aug 10 14:51:03 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:51:03 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Britain begins ID procurement In-Reply-To: <46BBEA2E.9070005@iimetro.com.au> References: <46BBEA2E.9070005@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: At 14:31 +1000 10/8/07, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: https://homeoffice.bravosolution.com/esop/toolkit/notice/public/tender.do?caller=0&tenderId=tender_17806 >http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22220727-24169,00.html >Ministers say the cards carrying fingerprint, iris and >face-recognition technology, are vital to fight terrorism, serious >organised crime and illegal immigration. Remarkable. A couple of Home Secretaries ago (i.e. fairly recently), a bloke called Clarke (no relation) said emphatically that the card would *not* contribute to counter-terrorism efforts. >The cards, which will involve one of the world's largest IT schemes, >have drawn much criticism, with opponents saying they will infringe >civil rights and be a costly flop. But, as Bernard pointed out, Australia Card Mark II is considerably more complex, and hence would be an even more serious infringement (should it work), but is far more likely to be a mega-costly mega-flop. >ID cards are used in about a dozen European Union countries but are >not always compulsory and do not carry as much data as those planned >for Britain. That's a serious misrepresentation. Many have 'inhabitant registration schemes', and many have a multi-function number akin to our TFN. But Denmark and Finland are the only two European countries with anything resembling the tool-for-totalitarians that the UK and Australian Governments are talking about imposing on their citizens. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From brd at iimetro.com.au Fri Aug 10 15:06:23 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:06:23 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Britain begins ID procurement In-Reply-To: References: <46BBEA2E.9070005@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46BBF24F.8000002@iimetro.com.au> Roger Clarke wrote: > But, as Bernard pointed out, Australia Card Mark II is considerably more > complex, and hence would be an even more serious infringement (should it > work), but is far more likely to be a mega-costly mega-flop. Just to clarify. I said it was more complex - I did not make any comparisons with the Australia Card or observations regarding consequential infringements. Privacy is not my area of expertise and I don't make public statements about it. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Fri Aug 10 15:38:56 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:38:56 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Britain begins ID procurement In-Reply-To: <46BBF24F.8000002@iimetro.com.au> References: <46BBEA2E.9070005@iimetro.com.au> <46BBF24F.8000002@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: Bernard wrote: >Technically the UK project is a lot simpler than the Australian >Access Card system. ... >Roger Clarke wrote: >> But, as Bernard pointed out, Australia Card Mark II is >>considerably more complex, and hence would be an even more serious >>infringement (should it work), but is far more likely to be a >>mega-costly mega-flop. At 15:06 +1000 10/8/07, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: >Just to clarify. I said it was more complex - I did not make any >comparisons with the Australia Card or observations regarding >consequential infringements. >Privacy is not my area of expertise and I don't make public >statements about it. Ain't english challenging ... Yep, that's exactly what I meant to imply: >> But, as Bernard pointed out, [Australia Card Mark II - my >>depiction, not Bernard's] is considerably more complex. [Separate >>point, made by Roger:] Hence [it] would be an even more serious >>infringement (should it work), but is far more likely to be a >>mega-costly mega-flop. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 10 16:52:15 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:52:15 +1000 Subject: [LINK] It's baaack---net filtering In-Reply-To: <1186710419.27562.63.camel@karl> References: <61fg7n$4tq215@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BBBD8D.9080902@praxis.com.au> <1186710419.27562.63.camel@karl> Message-ID: <46BC0B1F.7080700@ramin.com.au> Karl Auer wrote: > On Fri, 2007-08-10 at 11:21 +1000, Rick Welykochy wrote: >> It is wrong to assume that net filtering systems can be maintained >> in a secure manner by parents. > > "Kids interpret censorship as failure and route around it" :-) > ..... Every Australian family will be provided with a free internet filter and the federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service providers to filter pornography at the source. Communications and Australian Federal Police resources will be boosted immediately to expand checks on internet chat rooms to detect child predators, and privacy laws masking sex offenders on the net will be altered. The Prime Minister unveiled his new net commandments last night on a webcast to more than 700 churches and thousands of churchgoers around the country....... -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From eleanor at pacific.net.au Fri Aug 10 18:22:08 2007 From: eleanor at pacific.net.au (Eleanor Lister) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:22:08 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <20070810015829.GK4898@taz.net.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> <46BA5690.1020602@ramin.com.au> <46BA6C8E.5000300@lannet.com.au> <20070810015829.GK4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46BC2030.7090404@pacific.net.au> Craig Sanders wrote: > On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 11:23:26AM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > >>> Sports fans do subscribe to Foxtel cable. >>> >> Well, we did nearly lose the cricket of free to air, and as for the >> golf... >> > > wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no sport at all on FTA, not even > the 10-15 minutes that it wastes on the news each night? no football of > any kind, no tennis, no cricket, no interviews with not-quite-retarded > thugs whose claim to fame is that they can kick a ball or ride a bike or > swim etc, no commonwealth games, and bliss! no olympics. > > > craig can you cook? -- ------------ Eleanor Ashley Lister South Sydney Greens http://ssg.nsw.greens.org.au webmistress at ssg.nsw.greens.org.au From brd at iimetro.com.au Fri Aug 10 18:53:48 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:53:48 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46BC2030.7090404@pacific.net.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> <46BA5690.1020602@ramin.com.au> <46BA6C8E.5000300@lannet.com.au> <20070810015829.GK4898@taz.net.au> <46BC2030.7090404@pacific.net.au> Message-ID: <46BC279C.2010108@iimetro.com.au> Eleanor Lister wrote: > Craig Sanders wrote: > >>On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 11:23:26AM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: >> >> >>>>Sports fans do subscribe to Foxtel cable. >>>> >>> >>>Well, we did nearly lose the cricket of free to air, and as for the >>>golf... >>> >> >>wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no sport at all on FTA, not even >>the 10-15 minutes that it wastes on the news each night? no football of >>any kind, no tennis, no cricket, no interviews with not-quite-retarded >>thugs whose claim to fame is that they can kick a ball or ride a bike or >>swim etc, no commonwealth games, and bliss! no olympics. >> >> >>craig > > > can you cook? > That's the funniest three words I have ever seen on Link. Thanks Eleanor, you made my Friday. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Sat Aug 11 11:02:58 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:02:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Google-DoubleClick Opposed in Canada Message-ID: EPIC Alert 14.16 of August 10, 2007 http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_14.16.html ======================================================================== [3] Canadian Group Urges Investigation of Google-DoubleClick Merger ======================================================================== In a complaint to the Canadian Commissioner of Competition, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa last week requested an investigation into the proposed $3.1 billion merger between Google and Internet advertising company DoubleClick. CIPPIC said the merger should be reviewed "on the grounds that it is likely to prevent or lessen competition substantially in the targeted online advertising industry." "Through the merger, Google-DoubleClick will gain unprecedented market power, with which they can manipulate online advertising prices. Advertisers and web publishers will have no real choice but to choose Google's advertisement platforms in order to remain visible in the e-commerce market," said CIPPIC Director Philippa Lawson. CIPPIC cited the US Federal Trade Commission complaint and supplement filed by EPIC, the Center for Digial Democracy and the US Public Interest Research Group, as well as the ongoing European investigations into the merger. The Federal Trade Commission has made a "second request" to Google concerning the merger, which means the FTC is closely scrutinizing the proposed deal under antirust and privacy issues. In July, the European Commission Directorate on Competition announced that it would review the merger. The decision was made shortly after European consumer group BEUC sent a letter urging the Commission to investigate the merger, noting that the European Commission has considered consumer choice as an element in its review of past mergers. BEUC also reminded the Commission that it has publicly defined its role as preventing mergers that would deprive consumers of "high quality products, a wide selection of goods and services, and innovation." The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party also recently expanded an investigation of Google's data retention policies after receiving Google's response to their initial inquiry. The initial review focused on Google's storage periods of server logs, whereas the Working Party has indicated that its new investigation will evaluate the previous analysis in addition to the data protection issues at stake with other search engines. Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, Section 9 Application for an Inquiry into the Proposed Merger of Google, Inc. and DoubleClick Inc. (Aug. 2, 2007) (pdf): http://www.epic.org/redirect/cippic0807.html The European Commission Directorate on Competition: http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/index_en.html BEUC's letter on Proposed Acquisition of DoubleClick by Google (pdf): http://www.epic.org/privacy/ftc/google/beuc_062707.pdf Article 29 Data Protection Working Party Press Release (pdf): http://www.epic.org/redirect/a29_press.html EPIC's page on Proposed Google/DoubleClick Merger: http://www.epic.org/privacy/ftc/google/ Federal Trade Commission, Press Release: FTC to Host Town Hall to Examine Privacy Issues and Online Behavioral Advertising (Aug. 6, 2007): http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/08/ehavioral.shtm ======================================================================== -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From rick at praxis.com.au Sat Aug 11 11:32:39 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:32:39 +1000 Subject: [LINK] And the winner is .. Novell Message-ID: <46BD11B7.5060104@praxis.com.au> Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights! Novell has right to waive! Friday, August 10 2007 @ 04:52 PM EDT Hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here it is as text. Here is what matters most: [T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights. That's Aaaaall, Folks! The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". That's the ball game. There are a couple of loose ends, but the big picture is, SCO lost. Oh, and it owes Novell a lot of money from the Microsoft and Sun licenses. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services If schools also want to present students with intelligent design, I don't have any difficulty with that. It's about choice ... -- Brendan Nelson, 2005, Australian Minister for Education From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 11 15:19:29 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 05:19:29 GMT Subject: [LINK] a little light diversion Message-ID: <20070811051929.131271A4@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You The Wall Street Journal .. By VAUHINI VARA July 30, 2007; . Here, then, are the 10 secrets your IT department doesn't want you to know, the risks you'll face if you use them -- and tips about how to keep yourself (and your job) safe while you're at it. * * * 1. HOW TO SEND GIANT FILES The Problem: Everybody needs to email big files from time to time, everything from big marketing presentations to vacation photos. But if you send anything larger than a few megabytes, chances are you'll get an email saying you've hit the company's limit. Companies cap the amount of data employees can send and store in email for a very simple reason: They want to avoid filling up their servers, and thus slowing them down, says messaging-research firm Osterman Research Inc., of Black Diamond, Wash. And getting your company to increase your email limit can be a convoluted process. The Trick: Use online services such as YouSendIt Inc., SendThisFile Inc. and Carson Systems Ltd.'s DropSend, which let you send large files -- sometimes up to a few gigabytes in size -- free of charge. To use the services, you typically have to register, supplying personal information such as name and email address. You can then enter the recipient's email address and a message to him or her, and the site will give you instructions for uploading the file. In most cases, the site will send the recipient a link that he or she can click to download the file. * * * 2. HOW TO USE SOFTWARE THAT YOUR COMPANY WON'T LET YOU DOWNLOAD The Problem: Many companies require that employees get permission from the IT department to download software. But that can be problematic if you're trying to download software that your IT department has blacklisted. The Trick: There are two easy ways around this: finding Web-based alternatives or bringing in the software on an outside device. The first is easier. Say your company won't let you download the popular AOL Instant Messenger program, from Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit. You can still instant-message with colleagues and friends using a Web-based version of the service called AIM Express (AIM.com/aimexpress.adp). There's also Google Inc.'s instant-messaging service, Google Talk, accessible at Google.com/talk. There are Web-based equivalents of software such as music players and videogames, too -- typically, skimpier versions with fewer features than the regular programs. The other approach to this problem is more involved but gives you access to actual software programs on your computer. All three of our experts pointed to a company called Rare Ideas LLC (RareIdeas.com), which offers free versions of popular programs such as Firefox and OpenOffice. You can download the software onto a portable device like an iPod or a USB stick, through a service called Portable Apps (PortableApps.com). Then hook the device up to your work computer, and you're ready to go. (But if your company blocks you from using external devices, you're out of luck.) The Risk: Using Web-based services can be a strain on your company's resources. And bringing in software on outside devices can present a security problem. IT departments like to keep track of all the software used by employees, so that if a bug or other security problem arises, they can easily put fixes in place. That's not the case if you've brought the program in on your own. Another thing to keep in mind: Some less reputable software programs, especially underground file-sharing programs, could come loaded with spyware and make it possible for your own files to leak onto the Web. How to Stay Safe: If you bring in software on an outside device, says Mr. Lobel, make sure you at least tweak the security settings on your computer's antivirus software so that it scans the device for potential threats. That's easy to do, usually through an Options or Settings menu. Likewise, if you use a file-sharing service, set it up so that others can't access your own files, also through an Options or Settings area. * * * 3. HOW TO VISIT THE WEB SITES YOUR COMPANY BLOCKS The Problem: Companies often block employees from visiting certain sites -- ranging from the really nefarious (porn) to probably bad (gambling) to mostly innocuous (Web-based email services). The Trick: Even if your company won't let you visit those sites by typing their Web addresses into your browser, you can still sometimes sneak your way onto them. You travel to a third-party site, called a proxy, and type the Web address you want into a search box. Then the proxy site travels to the site you want and displays it for you -- so you can see the site without actually visiting it. Proxy.org, for one, features a list of more than 4,000 proxies. Another way to accomplish the same thing, from Mr. Frauenfelder and Ms. Trapani: Use Google's translation service, asking it to do an English-to- English translation. Just enter this -- Google.com/translate? langpair=en|en&u=www.blockedsite.com -- replacing "blockedsite.com" with the Web address of the site you want to visit. Google effectively acts as a proxy, calling up the site for you. The Risk: If you use a proxy to, say, catch up on email or watch a YouTube video, the main risk is getting caught by your boss. But there are scarier security risks: Online bad guys sometimes buy Web addresses that are misspellings of popular sites, then use them to infect visitors' computers, warns Mr. Lobel. Companies often block those sites, too -- but you won't be protected from them if you use a proxy. How to Stay Safe: Don't make a habit of using proxies for all your Web surfing. Use them only to visit specific sites that your company blocks for productivity-related reasons -- say, YouTube. And watch your spelling. * * * 4. HOW TO CLEAR YOUR TRACKS ON YOUR WORK LAPTOP The Problem: If you use a company-owned laptop at home, chances are you use it for personal tasks: planning family vacations, shopping for beach books, organizing online photo albums and so on. Many companies reserve the right to monitor all that activity, because the laptops are technically their property. So what happens if your -- ahem -- friend accidentally surfs onto a porn site or does a Web search for some embarrassing ailment? The Trick: The latest versions of the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers both make it easy to clear your tracks. In IE7, click on Tools, then Delete Browsing History. From there, you can either delete all your history by clicking Delete All or choose one or a few kinds of data to delete. In Firefox, just hit Ctrl-Shift-Del -- or click Clear Private Data under the Tools menu. The Risk: Even if you clear your tracks, you still face risks from roaming all over the Web. You could unintentionally install spyware on your computer from visiting a sketchy site or get your boss involved in legal problems for your behavior. If you're caught, it could mean (at best) embarrassment or (at worst) joblessness. How to Stay Safe: Clear your private data as often as possible. Better yet, don't use your work computer to do anything you wouldn't want your boss to know about. * * * 5. HOW TO SEARCH FOR YOUR WORK DOCUMENTS FROM HOME The Problem: You're catching up on work late at night or over the weekend - - but the documents you need to search through are stuck on your office PC. The Trick: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask unit have all released software that lets you quickly search your desktop documents. On top of that, some will let you search through documents saved on one computer from another one. How does it work? The search company keeps a copy of your documents on its own server. So it can scan those copies when you do a search remotely. To use Google's software -- among the most popular -- follow these steps on both your work and home PC. First, you'll need to set up a Google account on both machines by visiting Google.com/accounts. (Be sure to use the same account on both computers.) Then go to Desktop.Google.com to download the search software. When it's up and running -- again, do this on both machines -- click on Desktop Preferences, then Google Account Features. From there, check the box next to Search Across Computers. After that point, any document you open on either machine will be copied to Google's servers -- and will be searchable from either machine. The Risk: Corporate technology managers offer this nightmare scenario: You've saved top-secret financial information on your work PC. You set up desktop-search software so that you can access those files when working from home on your laptop. Then you lose your laptop. Uh-oh. Getting hold of your company's internal documents could give others insight into your plans, and losing certain information could have legal repercussions. In particular, myriad state laws regulate how a company has to react when it loses private information about customers or employees; most require notifying those people about the breach in writing. Sending those notifications can be costly for your company -- not to mention damaging to its reputation. On top of that threat, researchers have found vulnerabilities in Google's desktop-search software that could let a hacker trick a user into giving up access to files, says Mr. Schmugar of McAfee. (Those vulnerabilities have since been fixed, but more could crop up, he says.) Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise, says there are bound to be vulnerabilities in any software and that, to the best of his knowledge, none of the Google Desktop vulnerabilities were exploited by hackers. He adds that when Google finds out about a vulnerability, it quickly fixes it and notifies users. How to Stay Safe: If you have any files on your work PC that shouldn't be made public, ask your IT administrator to help you set up Google Desktop to avoid accidental leaks. * * * 6. HOW TO STORE WORK FILES ONLINE The Problem: Desktop search aside, most people who often work away from the office have come up with their own solution to getting access to work files. They save them on a disk or a portable device and then plug it into a home computer. Or they store the files on the company network, then access the network remotely. But portable devices can be cumbersome, and company-network connections can be slow and unreliable. The Trick: Use an online-storage service from the likes of Box.net Inc., Streamload Inc. or AOL-owned Xdrive. (Box.net also offers its service inside the social-networking site Facebook.) Most offer some free storage, from one to five gigabytes, and charge a few dollars a month for premium packages with extra space. Another guerrilla storage solution is to email files to your private, Web-based email account, such as Gmail or Hotmail. The Risk: A bad guy could steal your password for one of these sites and quickly grab copies of your company's sensitive files. How to Stay Safe: When you're thinking about storing a file online, ask yourself if it would be OK for that file to be splashed all over the Internet or sent to the CEO of your company's top rival. If so, go for it. If not, don't. * * * 7. HOW TO KEEP YOUR PRIVACY WHEN USING WEB EMAIL The Problem: Many companies now have the ability to track employees' emails, both on work email accounts and personal Web-based accounts, as well as IM conversations. The Trick: When you send emails -- using either your work or personal email address -- you can encrypt them, so that only you and the recipient can read them. In Microsoft Outlook, click on Tools, then Options and choose the Security tab. There, you can enter a password -- and nobody can open a note from you without supplying it. (Of course, you'll have to tell people the code beforehand.) For Web-based personal email, try this trick from Mr. Frauenfelder: When checking email, add an "s" to the end of the "http" in front of your email provider's Web address -- for instance, https://www.Gmail.com. This throws you into a secure session, so that nobody can track your email. Not all Web services may support this, however. To encrypt IM conversations, meanwhile, try the IM service Trillian from Cerulean Studios LLC, which lets you connect to AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and others -- and lets you encrypt your IM conversations so that they can't be read. The Risk: The main reason companies monitor email is to catch employees who are leaking confidential information. By using these tricks, you may set off false alarms and make it harder for the IT crew to manage real threats. How to Stay Safe: Use these tricks only occasionally, instead of as a default. * * * 8. HOW TO ACCESS YOUR WORK EMAIL REMOTELY WHEN YOUR COMPANY WON'T SPRING FOR A BLACKBERRY The Problem: Anyone without a BlackBerry knows the feeling: There's a lull in the conversation when you're out to dinner or an after-work beer, and everyone reaches for their pocket to grab their BlackBerry, leaving you alone to stir your drink. The Trick: You, too, can stay up to date on work email, using any number of consumer-oriented hand-held devices. Just set up your work email so that all your emails get forwarded to your personal email account. In Microsoft Outlook, you can do this by right-clicking on any email, choosing Create Rule, and asking that all your email be forwarded to another address. Then, set up your hand-held to receive your personal email, by following instructions from the service provider for your hand- held. (That's the company that sends you your bill.) The Risk: Now, not only can hackers break into your personal account by going online on a computer, they can also break into it by exploiting security vulnerabilities on your mobile device. How to Stay Safe: There's a kosher way to access work email on some devices, by getting passwords and other information from your IT department. * * * 9. HOW TO ACCESS YOUR PERSONAL EMAIL ON YOUR BLACKBERRY The Problem: If you do have a BlackBerry, you've probably got a different problem: You want to get your personal email just as easily as work email. The Trick: Look at the Settings area of your personal email account, and make sure you've enabled POP -- Post Office Protocol -- a method used to retrieve email from elsewhere. Then log in to the Web site for your BlackBerry service provider. Click on the Profile button, look for the Email Accounts section and click on Other Email Accounts. Then click Add Account and enter the information for your Web-based email account. Now your personal emails will pop up on the same screen as your company email. The Risk: Your company probably uses a whole bunch of security technology to keep viruses and spies out of your files. When you receive personal email on your BlackBerry, it's coming to you without passing through your company's firewall. That means viruses or spyware could sneak onto your BlackBerry via a personal email, says Mr. Schmugar of McAfee. Worse yet, he says, when you plug your BlackBerry into your work computer, there's a chance that the malicious software could jump onto your hard drive. How to Stay Safe: Cross your fingers and hope that your personal email provider is doing a decent job weeding out viruses, spyware and other intruders. (Chances are, it is.) * * * 10. HOW TO LOOK LIKE YOU'RE WORKING The Problem: You're doing some vital Web surfing and your boss turns the corner. What do you do? The Trick: Hit Alt-Tab to quickly minimize one window (say, the one where you're browsing ESPN.com) and maximize another (like that presentation that's due today). The Risk: The good news is that there are no known security risks. How to Stay Safe: Get back to work. -- Ms. Vara is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau. Write to Vauhini Vara at vauhini.vara at wsj.com -- Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Sat Aug 11 15:34:52 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:34:52 +1000 Subject: [LINK] a little light diversion In-Reply-To: <20070811051929.131271A4@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070811051929.131271A4@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: At 5:19 +0000 11/8/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You >The Wall Street Journal .. By VAUHINI VARA July 30, 2007; http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB118539543272477927-lMyQjAxMDE3ODM1MDMzOTA1Wj.html With even the WSJ offering 'advice' that invites a whole host of insecurities (Google Desktop, for heaven's sake!!??), what chance is there of small business or consumers avoiding the pitfalls?? -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 11 15:52:06 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 05:52:06 GMT Subject: [LINK] a little light diversion Message-ID: <20070811055206.64B7E1C3@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> At 03:34 PM 11/08/2007, Roger Clarke wrote: > Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You > The Wall Street Journal .. By VAUHINI VARA July 30, 2007; > lMyQjAxMDE3ODM1MDMzOTA1Wj.html> > > With even the WSJ offering 'advice' that invites a whole host > of insecurities (Google Desktop, for heaven's sake!!??), what > chance is there of small business or consumers avoiding the pitfalls?? True enough, Roger, one agrees in principle .. but, others say ... Stop complaining and shut the door! By Frank Hayes on Fri, 08/10/2007 - 2:54pm I didn't see this Wall Street Journal article, "Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You," when it appeared at the beginning of last week. The piece was a tip sheet for how employees can get around corporate IT policies, and it seems to have stirred up great fury in some quarters -- I understand why the security people are unhappy with the WSJ for publishing this piece. But the security people should understand that, on this one, they're dead wrong. Not a little wrong -- completely, 100% wrong. And I'm really appalled to think that serious security professionals believe what the WSJ published was a bunch of deep, dark secrets to corporate users. Users know this stuff already! They don't have to read an article in the WSJ to learn about it. They have departmental power users who have been diving through the holes in their company's IT security for years. The Web and print magazines are full of information on everything that was in the WSJ article. And everybody's brother-in-law is full of misinformation about how there's really nothing wrong with it. This isn't even a case of depending on "security through obscurity." It's not obscure! The idea that this is new information to users falls under the category of "security through wishful thinking." Was the WSJ wrong, irresponsible and evil to publish the article? Hogwash. They revealed nothing. But they did do every corporate IT security pro a huge favor. It's not too late to dig up the Monday, July 30, issue of the paper. Photocopy the article. Take it to your boss, and recite the following speech: "We must now assume that every user can do these things. "I need your sponsorship and the budget and resources necessary to close these 10 security holes in our systems. "And I need them now, because users have had this article for two weeks." Face it, if you just e-mailed that boss a list of those same stupidly dangerous user tricks, you'd get no action. You'd likely get nothing if you sent a copy of an article with the same information that appeared in Computerworld or CSO or any other infosec trade pub. But the Wall Street Journal? That's something that will get respect all the way up the chain. Quit whining. Use the opportunity this presents. And for petesake stop assuming your users are stupid. Your worst enemies? Maybe. Grossly misinformed and undereducated and uncooperative when it comes to security? Probably. But not stupid. That stopped being a secure assumption a long time ago. Filed under : IT Management | Security Frank Hayes's blog -- Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 11 16:25:02 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 06:25:02 GMT Subject: [LINK] Fwd: Literature Factory invitation (Second Life) Message-ID: <20070811062502.A455A1C3@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:18:09 -0500 From: Jeremy Hunsinger Subject: Fwd: Literature Factory invitation (Second Life) > > Forwarded with permission:) Please distribute as appropriate. -jh > > You are invited to the grand opening of the Literature Factory at > Kula 2 (187,7) in Second Life. What is a Literature Factory? Well > now, that's a silly question, it's simply a factory that makes > literature. According to Wikipedia: > > "The term "literature" has different meanings depending on who > is using it and in what context. It could be applied broadly to > mean any symbolic record, encompassing everything from images and > sculptures to letters. In a more narrow sense the term could mean > only text composed of letters, or other examples of symbolic > written language (Egyptian hieroglyphs, for example). An even more > narrow interpretation is that text have a physical form, such as on > paper or some other portable form, to the exclusion of inscriptions > or digital media." > > Well, we certainly meet that criteria, excepting the physical form > bit, but we hope you'll appreciate the transgression. > > Now, we have things to do and people to see, so we went ahead and > automated the factory. The Word-o-Mats runs tirelessly day and > night, manufacturing words for the factory, the Bin Bots with them > take charge of ferrying the words from the Word-o-Mats to the > sorted bins on the other side of the factory. From there other > bots build sentences and transfer them into the new works of > literature under constant production. > > We're celebrating our grand opening Saturday with an open house > from 4pm to 6pm SLT so drop in to the Literature Factory at Kula 2 > (189,9,25). > -- > Blog: http://channel3b.wordpress.com > Second Life Name: Ciemaar Flintoff > jeremy hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu) wiki.tmttlt.com www.tmttlt.com () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.stswiki.org/ sts wiki http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/ Learning Inquiry-the journal http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/ Transdisciplinary Studies:the book series -- Cheers, people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Sat Aug 11 16:42:09 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:42:09 +1000 Subject: [LINK] a little light diversion In-Reply-To: <20070811055206.64B7E1C3@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070811055206.64B7E1C3@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: At 5:52 +0000 11/8/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au posted: >Stop complaining and shut the door! >By Frank Hayes on Fri, 08/10/2007 - 2:54pm > >I understand why the security people are unhappy with the WSJ for >publishing this piece. ... [but] they're dead wrong ... I'm not in the least unhappy that the WSJ published information that divulges insecurities. What I'm complaining about (as I suspect are many of "the security people") is that the article is written with such naivete, failing to show appreciation of the insecurities. It instructs in available dodges, without conveying anywhere near enough about the risks involved. (It didn't help that it adopted a tone befitting a secondary school newsletter - 'Ways to cheat your teachers and parents'). >And I'm really appalled to think that serious security professionals >believe what the WSJ published was a bunch of deep, dark secrets to >corporate users. I haven't read what he has, but I'd be astonished if "serious security professionals" pretended, let alone believed, that these were "deep, dark secrets". But I guess Hayes needs something to blog about. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From cas at taz.net.au Sat Aug 11 16:53:33 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:53:33 +1000 Subject: [LINK] a little light diversion In-Reply-To: <20070811055206.64B7E1C3@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070811055206.64B7E1C3@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <20070811065333.GL4898@taz.net.au> On Sat, Aug 11, 2007 at 05:52:06AM +0000, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Stop complaining and shut the door! > By Frank Hayes on Fri, 08/10/2007 - 2:54pm > > [...] > It's not too late to dig up the Monday, July 30, issue of the paper. > Photocopy the article. Take it to your boss, and recite the following > speech: > > "We must now assume that every user can do these things. > > "I need your sponsorship and the budget and resources necessary to close > these 10 security holes in our systems. > > "And I need them now, because users have had this article for two weeks." and if any IT person took that article to upper management and made that request, the most likely response would be "wow, thanks for the pointer. i've always wondered how i could do that". a lot of security holes in corporate firewalls are there because some ignorant high-level manager wants to do something stupid, has absolutely no interest in being taught a better/more secure way of achieving the same goal, and has the authority to order IT staff to ignore best-practice and do it anyway. (and yes, those 10 "secret tips" are lame and old news...it's still bad that the WSJ is encouraging such abysmal security breaches) craig -- craig sanders From wavey_one at yahoo.com Sat Aug 11 18:17:07 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 01:17:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney Message-ID: <771152.76605.qm@web50501.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Roger, You've got this wrong. This is a report to the board on the activities/progress of the Names Policy Panel by the chair of the panel, either in person or by telephone. David ----- Original Message ---- From: Roger Clarke To: link at anu.edu.au Sent: Friday, 10 August, 2007 11:18:16 AM Subject: Re: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney At 10:29 +1000 10/8/07, Josh Rowe wrote: >The auDA board will meet on Monday in Sydney. This meeting is open >to the public. >Time: 10:00 AM >Date: 13 August 2007 >Location: Maddocks Lawyers, Angel Place, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney >Notice of 2007 Extraordinary General Meeting >http://www.auda.org.au/agm/egm2007-notice/ >auDA Board Meeting Agenda - 13 August 2007 >http://www.auda.org.au/meetings/agenda-13082007/ >" ... >auDA Board Meeting - 13 August 2007 >Agenda >6. Policy Development > - 2007 Names Policy Panel report But no link is provided to the report, or even the Exec Summary, nor is any clue given about what the report contains. I trust that at least the Board members have some attachments, to that they can prepare for the meeting. http://www.auda.org.au/2007npp/2007npp-index/ Many linkers will doubtless appreciate the URL when the document becomes available. Thanks Josh! -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link at mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sick of deleting your inbox? Yahoo!7 Mail has free unlimited storage. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Sat Aug 11 20:03:53 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:03:53 +1000 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney In-Reply-To: <771152.76605.qm@web50501.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <771152.76605.qm@web50501.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 1:17 -0700 11/8/07, David Goldstein wrote: >You've got this wrong. This is a report to the board on the >activities/progress of the Names Policy Panel by the chair of the >panel, either in person or by telephone. Ah, the ambiguities of that curious dialect of english used for Board Agendae. (As a many-year Board Chair, I should have picked it up). I look forward to your eagle-eyes also picking up the *actual* report, when it comes to light! P.S. My Eudora doesn't like whatever CR/LF your SquirrelMail (version 1.2.11) is adding into the posting you replied to. I've seen that oddity before, and never run it to ground. >Notice of 2007 Extraordinary General >Meeting >http://www.auda.org.au/agm/egm2007-notice/ >auDA Board >Meeting Agenda - 13 August >2007 >http://www.auda.org.au/meetings/agenda-13082007/ >" ... >auDA >Board Meeting - 13 August 2007 >Agenda >... >6. Policy Development > - 2007 Names Policy Panel report >... -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 11 22:44:26 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:44:26 GMT Subject: [LINK] a little light diversion Message-ID: <20070811124426.0BB0F1FE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> At 04:53 PM 11/08/2007, Craig writes: > a lot of security holes in corporate firewalls are there because some > ignorant high-level manager wants to do something stupid .. and has > the authority to order IT staff to ignore best-practice and do it anyway. Then the company IT professionals would be acting counter to several of our APS code of conduct clauses at the very least, and, class-legal-action were it to be a public company. > it's bad that the WSJ is encouraging such abysmal security breaches And Roger, "failing to show appreciation of the insecurities. It instructs in available dodges, without conveying anywhere near enough about the risks involved." Given the likely WSJ financial-market-computer-savvy readership, where computers regularly manage business in the billions, I suspect the article might best be regarded as a grey-suit corporate network self-test weapon. I much prefer this WSJ approach to IT, (arm's length), to the New York Times approach which is somewhat gushy about personal technology: At 07:30 AM 10/08/2007, The New York Times wrote: Thursday, August 9, 2007 THIS WEEK IN CIRCUITS: Five Fun Little Gadgets I do a lot of stuff for The Times: a weekly print column, this weekly e- column, a daily blog, a weekly audio podcast and a weekly video.. Anyway, my video last week profiled five fun little gadgets that were too trivial to write about in my columns, but seemed telegenic enough to show off on camera. Each would make a great stocking stuffer; each solves a minor technology problem in an ingenious way. Here, for anyone who missed it, is a recap of the handy little inventions I featured in last week's video. BlueQ ($40, www.bqwireless.com). The BlueQ, shipping this fall, looks like a black rubber watchband, minus the watch. It contains a tiny Bluetooth receiver and a cellphone-like vibrating module. The idea.which is, actually, rather brilliant.is that you'll no longer miss cellphone calls because your cellphone's own vibrate mode is feeble and you can't hear the ringer. Because of the BlueQ, you'll feel the vibration on your wrist, where you can't miss it. (Get the name now? Blue as in Bluetooth; Q as in your cue to answer the phone.) Of course, black rubber isn't many people's idea of a fashion statement, so the kit comes with a special sheet of inkjet printer paper. The idea is that you can design self-adhesive strips, using a template on the Web site, that precisely fit the rubber wristband to make it a little less industrial-looking. On my prototype, the sticky paper didn't stick well at all. Even so, this is a killer idea, and it'll do very well. Quik Pod ($25, quikpod.com). Another clever solution to a problem you didn't know you had: This is a lightweight, plastic, telescoping support for your digital camera or camcorder. Its threads screw tightly into the camera's tripod socket and adjusts to any angle. The idea is that now you can take self-portraits without having to hand the camera to a stranger. You can also shoot over crowds, under the car, and so on. (You set the camera's self-timer to make it take the shot.) >From the description, I couldn't really understand how the Quik Pod is any different from a monopod (which is something like a tripod but with only one leg, so it helps stabilize a camera with less bulk than a tripod). But as the inventor pointed out to me by e-mail, "the largest diameter segment of the Quik Pod is at the opposite end to the camera mount, to allow a hand grip. If you used a regular monopod to hold a camera out, you'd have to grip the thinnest rod, which normally touches the ground. The thinnest rod of a monopod does not provide a positive grip and is somewhat slippery." The Quik Pod's hand grip, on the other hand, is rubberized to make it a more comfortable grip. And the whole affair is made of polycarbonate and aluminum, so it's waterproof, for you lucky ducks who have underwater cameras or camera housings. DiscEraser (disceraser.com, $13). This tiny plastic tool quickly and easily gouges nasty quarter-inch-wide tracks in the back of a CD or DVD that you want to throw away, rendering it completely unreadable by anyone else. It's a good safeguard before you throw away any disc that contains personal data. It's a heck of a lot safer and cleaner than breaking the disc (which results in nasty plastic splinter shards). It's also much cheaper and less messy than a disc shredder. And it's kind of fun to use. If you can believe it, five readers actually wrote me after watching my video to say that they routinely destroy their CDs and DVDs by nuking them in the microwave. Yikes, people! As the DiscEraser Web site points out, the arcing can damage your oven, the toxic fumes can damage you, and even then your disc may not actually be unreadable. Besides: one swipe of the DiscEraser is much faster than 60 seconds in the microwave. See Eye2Eye (bodelin.com/se2e, $50 from bhphotovideo.com.much better than the $100 list price I had in my video). The See Eye2Eye is a sort of a periscope attachment that slips over your Web cam and hangs down over your screen. The idea is that, when you have video chats, you can make eye contact with your buddy. That's because you're no longer looking down at your buddy's image halfway down your monitor; you see it instead floating directly in front of your own camera. With some optional add-on software, this mirror contraption also becomes an excellent teleprompter; that is, you can look directly into the camera, all the while reading your script. Clever stuff. Monkeysoft Office Upgrade ($20, monkeysoftoffice.com). OK, I don't even know where to begin. This kit includes software for a Windows PC, a foam caveman-style hatchet and a U.S.B. motion sensor. You affix the U.S.B. sensor to the back of your monitor. Then, the next time your PC starts driving you crazy, you grab the mallet and start pounding your screen. SMASH! CRASH! SHATTER! With each pound, realistic sounds and animations make it look like you're breaking the glass of the screen. And then, on the fourth smash, the glass shards fall away to reveal what's really causing your computer problems: a roomful of juvenile, out-of- control monkeys. O.K., how does someone even come up with something like this.and who'd believe in a product like this enough to bring it to market? Well, whatever. I'm just glad someone did, because it's hilarious. - This week's Pogue's Posts blog. Visit David Pogue on the Web at DavidPogue.com. POGUE'S POSTS The Blog The Times's David Pogue keeps you on top of the latest in personal technology. 620 Eighth Ave. New York, N.Y. 10018 Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company -- Cheers all .. Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Sun Aug 12 10:54:49 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:54:49 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Second Monday? Message-ID: As far as I'm aware, Ed Valauskas has always got the editions of First Monday out, on time, on the first Monday of the month. But August 2007 (Vol 12 Issue 8) was due on the 6th and isn't there yet: http://www.firstmonday.org/ Has anyone picked up any hints of problems there? -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From gdt at gdt.id.au Sun Aug 12 11:22:24 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:52:24 +0930 Subject: [LINK] OOXML making a farce of ISO standards process Message-ID: <1186881744.7629.5.camel@andromache> Hi folks, I've been closely involved with the standards-making process in IETF and IEEE for a very long time. Both of those organisations look to the processes of ISO as the "gold standard". That seems to have broken down badly, with the process for ISO's consideration of Microsoft's new document format being a farce of what a standards development process should look like. I've become upset enough to put in a submission myself. Drafts are at Comments are welcome. It might download a bit slowly since they are on my home ADSL link. Cheers, Glen From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Sun Aug 12 12:13:16 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:13:16 +1000 Subject: [LINK] NSI = Not Suitable Infrastructure Message-ID: Not just http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp but everything at http://www.networksolutions.com/ is currently out of action for "scheduled maintenance"!!?? We are updating our Web site. As part of our efforts to improve your experience we are performing scheduled maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience. Our site will be available shortly. We look forward to serving your needs soon. Thank you for visiting our site. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Sun Aug 12 12:33:24 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:33:24 +1000 Subject: [LINK] re: Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard Message-ID: <20070812023806.0A1199BC@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> I wrote Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:01:53 +1000: >... I had a telephone call from SA on Wednesday to say that there >was no committee considering OOXML. Instead SA are hosting a forum >on the proposed Draft International Standard ISO/IEC 29500, >"Information technology - Office Open XML file formats" standard in >Sydney on 9 August. ... There are at least two reports on the meeting: * Rick Jelliffe's "Report on Standards Australia industry forum on DIS 29500" . * Lee Welbur's "Report from Australia - the OOXML Forum": . Rick refers to my excerpts from the Standards Australia agenda for the meeting to clarify the purpose of the meeting . The comments show a number of shortcomings in Standards Australia's processes. But I suspect that much of the controversy about the meeting is due to a misunderstanding over the fast track international standards process used. Rather than asking "is this good enough to be a standard?" the process essentially says "is this so bad it should NOT be made a standard?". Rick seemed to be supporting OOXML and says it is not difficult to implement. But, like the reported position of National Archives of Australia (NAA), I think it will be more difficult to support an additional international standard format (OOXML), than it would be to just use the existing one (ODF). Rick argues that government agencies, such as NAA, don't have to implement OOXML, as Standards Australia is not a government body. However, SA is a government endorsed body for making standards and so its advice is likely to influence Australian government agencies. If agencies send NAA documents in OOXML, then it will have to accept them (and most likely convert them to ODF for long term storage). 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 From georgebray at gmail.com Sun Aug 12 15:38:31 2007 From: georgebray at gmail.com (George Bray) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:38:31 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique Message-ID: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> Here's a challenge for critical linkers, see if you can find anything wrong with the new ABC News site. http://www.abc.net.au/news/ To my mind it's a superb example of a fast, light and immensely rich site. Looks good in all the browsers I tried on Mac. Really, very very fast to fetch and render. Modern user interface with in-page switchable tabs, nice layout and colouring, advanced search engine and human-grokkable URLs. Customisable media delivery options per user, the in-browser defaults worked for me. Great use of tags to "stick" me to the site, making me come back for the news in my areas. Invites community submission of media for news items captured by the public, and has a level of discussion above the news using blogs and comments. Not to mention delivery to mobile devices using RSS feeds. Excellent re-use of broadcast TV and radio assets. Easy-to-use media players, they've made optimal use of the Flash video format squeezing a decent frame rate into a small-ish bandwidth. Aunty has multiplied the value I get from my news staples on radio and TV by giving me a sophisticated tool that makes news research and consumption easier, and more compatible with my timetable. Eleven out of Ten. George -- George Bray - University of Canberra, Australia From eleanor at pacific.net.au Sun Aug 12 15:54:11 2007 From: eleanor at pacific.net.au (Eleanor Lister) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:54:11 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> References: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46BEA083.3050805@pacific.net.au> and here i was thinking of bagging out the new site. it shows one or two news items, then won't play the rest. Firefox / Ubuntu regards, EL George Bray wrote: > Here's a challenge for critical linkers, see if you can find anything > wrong with the new ABC News site. > > http://www.abc.net.au/news/ > > To my mind it's a superb example of a fast, light and immensely rich site. > > Looks good in all the browsers I tried on Mac. > > Really, very very fast to fetch and render. > > Modern user interface with in-page switchable tabs, nice layout and > colouring, advanced search engine and human-grokkable URLs. > > Customisable media delivery options per user, the in-browser defaults > worked for me. > > Great use of tags to "stick" me to the site, making me come back for > the news in my areas. > > Invites community submission of media for news items captured by the > public, and has a level of discussion above the news using blogs and > comments. Not to mention delivery to mobile devices using RSS feeds. > > Excellent re-use of broadcast TV and radio assets. Easy-to-use media > players, they've made optimal use of the Flash video format squeezing > a decent frame rate into a small-ish bandwidth. > > Aunty has multiplied the value I get from my news staples on radio and > TV by giving me a sophisticated tool that makes news research and > consumption easier, and more compatible with my timetable. > > Eleven out of Ten. > > George > -- ------------ Eleanor Ashley Lister South Sydney Greens http://ssg.nsw.greens.org.au webmistress at ssg.nsw.greens.org.au From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Sun Aug 12 15:56:34 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:56:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.co m> References: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <61fg7n$4us7o9@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 03:38 PM 12/08/2007, George Bray wrote: >Here's a challenge for critical linkers, see if you can find anything >wrong with the new ABC News site. Yeah, here's one I came across yesterday and submitted to their feedback form. I wanted to find an article about the Angus and Robertson changes that will disadvantage small publishing houses, causing the publishers to PAY A&R to carry their books. I did the search on ABC news, got the hits, but the links were wrong. Not just for the two stories that related, but other non-related stories on the results page. The story was only 2 days old, but gone. I have no idea why, and doubt I'll hear back from ABC (might). So I'll give it 9 out of 10 because I do like the new site (The Age, too), but it still needs to function properly. I'm using firefox 2.0, so that shouldn't make any difference. Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au Sun Aug 12 17:15:43 2007 From: sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au (steve jenkin) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:15:43 +1000 Subject: Paying for shelf space Re: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4us7o9@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> <61fg7n$4us7o9@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <46BEB39F.9020702@canb.auug.org.au> Jan Whitaker wrote on 12/8/07 3:56 PM: > causing the publishers to PAY A&R to carry their books. Mention on the ABC blog: Jan > > > Jan Whitaker > JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria > jwhit at janwhitaker.com > business: http://www.janwhitaker.com > personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ > commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ > -- Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist. 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sjenkin From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Sun Aug 12 17:23:36 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:23:36 +1000 Subject: Paying for shelf space Re: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <46BEB39F.9020702@canb.auug.org.au> References: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> <61fg7n$4us7o9@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BEB39F.9020702@canb.auug.org.au> Message-ID: <61fg7n$4ustkp@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 05:15 PM 12/08/2007, steve jenkin wrote: >I'd love to agree with you and express outrage at this latest folly or >excess of our economic system... But Borders, Bunnings and Woolies >would not be thriving if people didn't flock there... They are doing >enough right for consumers and producers that we are stuck with the >model. Personally I hate it - the extra benefits are small and the loss >of decades of passion, experience and knowledge is irredeemable... > >Lets form a resistance movement and make a difference. Uh, I know what being verballed feels like now. :-) Here's what I said in response to a faulty search engine at ABC, only as an example (one out of 7 sentences in the post): "I wanted to find an article about the Angus and Robertson changes that will disadvantage small publishing houses, causing the publishers to PAY A&R to carry their books." I wouldn't call that outrage, merely commenting on positions stated in the articles I did find elsewhere. You gotta admit, though, that charging the publisher of this year's Miles Franklin winner is a bit odd. Seems like a bit of nose cutting in this case. And the articles that I did find in the online newspaper sites said that smaller houses would be disadvantaged and that few books from smaller groups like Indigenous writing could be economically offered to A&R shops because of the ultra-small margins they have, in fact, being most likely no margin items. this probably belongs on unlink if the discussion about publishing in the print world is going to be the focus. Cheers, Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From rick at praxis.com.au Sun Aug 12 19:58:14 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 19:58:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4us7o9@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> <61fg7n$4us7o9@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <46BED9B6.2070009@praxis.com.au> Jan Whitaker wrote: > At 03:38 PM 12/08/2007, George Bray wrote: >> Here's a challenge for critical linkers, see if you can find anything >> wrong with the new ABC News site. > > Yeah, here's one I came across yesterday and submitted to their feedback > form. I wanted to find an article about the Angus and Robertson changes > that will disadvantage small publishing houses, causing the publishers > to PAY A&R to carry their books. I did the search on ABC news, got the > hits, but the links were wrong. Not just for the two stories that > related, but other non-related stories on the results page. The story > was only 2 days old, but gone. I have no idea why, and doubt I'll hear > back from ABC (might). > > So I'll give it 9 out of 10 because I do like the new site (The Age, > too), but it still needs to function properly. Here is an interesting exercise in searching ABC news. First I thought I'd try googling. Here is the search string: Angus and Robertson charge small publishers stock books site:http://www.abc.net.au/news/ (all of the above in one line into the search box please) Result: *** two matches *** one from 2005 and one from this week. The relevant link is as follows: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/08/2000147.htm Probe urged into book store 'blackmail' By Emily Bourke Posted Wed Aug 8, 2007 7:43pm AEST So I thought I'd try exactly the same search criteria on the ABC news site, i.e. "Angus and Robertson charge small publishers stock books" Result: Documents: *** 30665 fully matching *** plus 0 partially matching Hrmmmm ... "fully matching" ? Let's try that again,using the ABC's recommended advanced search: Query: +Angus +Robertson +charge +small +publishers +stock +books -- Refine this query Documents: *** 0 fully *** matching plus 0 partially matching Okay, one more try, since the word "charge" is not on the page: Query: +Angus +Robertson +small +publishers +stock +books -- Refine this query Documents: 1 fully matching plus 0 partially matching Which produces the same link that google found. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/08/2000147.htm Obviously the search algorithms in use by google and the ABC news site are quite different. Google has erred on the side of plausibility and finds the page, even given that one word was not found on the page. The ABC first errs on the side of inexactness and finds 30665 matches. Refining the search by explicitly specifying all words as "required" (+word) and then removing a word that I know not to be on the page finally finds the same page. Google 1 ABC News 0 This is quite typical. I often cannot find what I am looking for on a website using its own search facility. I then use site:whatever.com in google and do find what I need. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. -- Mark Twain From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Sun Aug 12 20:44:06 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 20:44:06 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <46BED9B6.2070009@praxis.com.au> References: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> <61fg7n$4us7o9@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BED9B6.2070009@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <61fg7n$4uulde@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 07:58 PM 12/08/2007, Rick Welykochy wrote: >Google 1 >ABC News 0 > >This is quite typical. I often cannot find what I am looking for on a website >using its own search facility. I then use site:whatever.com in google and do >find what I need. In my example, I got the results, but the links given said Sorry, the link doesn't exist. just to clear that up since I wasn't clear in my first post. Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From brendansweb at optusnet.com.au Sun Aug 12 23:14:17 2007 From: brendansweb at optusnet.com.au (Brendan Scott) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:14:17 +1000 Subject: SMH site was: Re: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> References: <635bd2180708112238o38e0bca1r65a2a427cd2c0105@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46BF07A9.9010208@optusnet.com.au> George Bray wrote: > Here's a challenge for critical linkers, see if you can find anything > wrong with the new ABC News site. > > http://www.abc.net.au/news/ Yes. The new ABC site is as good as the new SMH site is bad: http://www.smh.com.au/ Of course for the refugees of this web site revamp there is always (the bit austere): http://www.smh.com.au/text/ Brendan From stephen at melbpc.org.au Mon Aug 13 03:43:10 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:43:10 GMT Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique Message-ID: <20070812174310.AA67E16FB8@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> George writes: > Here's a challenge for critical linkers, see if you can find > anything wrong with the new ABC News site. > > http://www.abc.net.au/news/ Agreed George, technically the ABC site seems very well done. >From a news perspective, the ABC, arising from an audio / visual technology, needs quick and punchy sound bites. The newspaper websites have the measured analysis of news. The ABC primarily quotes experts or witnesses while newspaper sites analyze detail. Of course there is a place for both, and both need good site-design For example, compare coverage of the same item at two websites: Cheers, George Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From stephen at melbpc.org.au Mon Aug 13 06:38:55 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 20:38:55 GMT Subject: [LINK] residency cards Message-ID: <20070812203855.2AEBD168D6@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People By KEITH BRADSHER Published: August 12, 2007 SHENZHEN, China .. Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens. Data on the chip will include not just the citizen?s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord?s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China?s controversial ?one child? policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card. Security experts describe China?s plans as the world?s largest effort to meld cutting-edge computer technology with police work to track the activities of a population and fight crime. But they say the technology can be used to violate civil rights. The Chinese government has ordered all large cities to apply technology to police work and to issue high-tech residency cards to 150 million people who have moved to a city but not yet acquired permanent residency. Both steps are officially aimed at fighting crime and developing better controls on an increasingly mobile population, including the nearly 10 million peasants who move to big cities each year. But they could also help the Communist Party retain power by maintaining tight controls on an increasingly prosperous population at a time when street protests are becoming more common. ?If they do not get the permanent card, they cannot live here, they cannot get government benefits, and that is a way for the government to control the population in the future,? said Michael Lin, the vice president for investor relations at China Public Security Technology, the company providing the technology. -- Regards people Stephen Loosley Victoria Australia From georgebray at gmail.com Mon Aug 13 08:26:13 2007 From: georgebray at gmail.com (George Bray) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:26:13 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <20070812174310.AA67E16FB8@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070812174310.AA67E16FB8@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <635bd2180708121526v29ce8b5dx2048c8cf379f0189@mail.gmail.com> On 8/13/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > >From a news perspective, the ABC, arising from an audio / visual > technology, needs quick and punchy sound bites. The newspaper > websites have the measured analysis of news. The ABC primarily > quotes experts or witnesses while newspaper sites analyze detail. That's a good point, Stephen. There's much more depth from the broadsheets. Probably something to do with the attention span of the audience. It feels like the ABC are trying to cover everything that comes through their news feeds. George From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Mon Aug 13 09:00:23 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:00:23 +1000 Subject: SMH site was: Re: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <46BF07A9.9010208@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133723@cal066.act.gov.au> Brendan wrote: > Of course for the refugees of this web site revamp there is > always (the bit austere): > http://www.smh.com.au/text/ I'd change "austere" to "brilliant". They took it down some time ago, but then replaced it - I assume after a deluge of protest. Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From rick at praxis.com.au Mon Aug 13 08:59:58 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:59:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] residency cards In-Reply-To: <20070812203855.2AEBD168D6@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070812203855.2AEBD168D6@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <46BF90EE.8060302@praxis.com.au> stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People > By KEITH BRADSHER Published: August 12, 2007 > th&emc=th> [SNIP] > Both steps are officially aimed at fighting crime and developing better > controls on an increasingly mobile population, including the nearly 10 > million peasants who move to big cities each year. But they could also > help the Communist Party retain power by maintaining tight controls on an > increasingly prosperous population at a time when street protests are > becoming more common. Yes, yes, yada yada yada. But will this make children's toys made in China free from lead paint? Will it make exported Chinese food stuffs safe to eat? These are the real concerns ;) cheers rickw From pbolger at gmail.com Mon Aug 13 09:38:15 2007 From: pbolger at gmail.com (Paul Bolger) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:08:15 +0930 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708121526v29ce8b5dx2048c8cf379f0189@mail.gmail.com> References: <20070812174310.AA67E16FB8@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <635bd2180708121526v29ce8b5dx2048c8cf379f0189@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > That's a good point, Stephen. There's much more depth from the > broadsheets. Probably something to do with the attention span of the > audience. Or that it would take about half an hour to read out loud a broadsheet feature story. Next time you have a dinner party try reading out a two thousand word feature article from the SMH. I suspect you'll find that the 'attention span' of your friends is not too good either. ABC news online is run by their 'news' as opposed to 'current affairs' section. In broadcast terms news produce the radio and television bulletins, but not AM, PM, 7.30 Report etc. News Online do attempt to incorporate or cross link to the current affairs material, but the producers of these programs are reluctant to let their work be 'rebranded' as generic 'news'. If you want in-depth stories you'll generally need to look on the individual program sites. When the online news service started there was a hope that online would be funded as a complete news section, and would have feature writers, 'break' stories etc - but the reality has always been that it's much cheaper and easier to put up the stories from the news service than it is to produce new material, or to repurpose material as text. The broadsheets don't actually do much with their online content other than to chuck it into the CMS. If you take a look at the transcripts of a program like Background Briefing you'll notice that a feature radio piece often makes pretty bad reading. And television is even worse. For my money the worst 'feature' of the new ABC site is the 'also of interest' section. It uses keywords to try and select other items which are similar to the one you are reading. I was reading "Bear kills boy at campsite" (this was a few weeks ago). Apparently that means I'm also interested in: Grizzly bear kills couple in Alaska Leopard kills 4-year-old in Bombay Biologist survives second bear attack Julia Roberts gives birth to baby boy Alligator kills Florida man in canal Spot the odd one out! From cas at taz.net.au Mon Aug 13 09:45:44 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:45:44 +1000 Subject: [LINK] residency cards In-Reply-To: <20070812203855.2AEBD168D6@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070812203855.2AEBD168D6@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <20070812234544.GN4898@taz.net.au> On Sun, Aug 12, 2007 at 08:38:55PM +0000, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > "If they do not get the permanent card, they cannot live here, they cannot > get government benefits, and that is a way for the government to control > the population in the future," said Michael Lin, the vice president for > investor relations at China Public Security Technology, the company > providing the technology. sounds remarkably similar to Howard's "it's not an ID card, honest" Access Card. craig -- craig sanders From lucychili at gmail.com Mon Aug 13 10:23:15 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:53:15 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Fwd: Response from Janet Hawtin on OOXML proposal to Standards Australia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Vote no with comments This is an open letter which I would like to be considered in the Standards Australia review of the ooxml proposal. I have not been sent information by Standards Australia about the required format and would be happy to adapt this material to a format when provided. While I appreciate the original scope of the process around technical concerns I also am writing about the proposal process and feel that the primary problems with the proposal are process related. I am writing more broadly because I feel the broader concerns are important to our Standards organisation and would avoid similar proposals using the same process. Overview: Double standards are counter productive In this issue there are two kinds of double standards. The proposal and its counterpart existing ISO standards, and the open or closed processes which the different projects have followed. Microsoft's OOXML replicates functions covered by the Open Document Format standard and other standard XML formats. Duplication of standards reduces the value of the original openly developed standards. Microsoft supporters in the Australian meeting suggested that "OOXML was enough of a standard, that we should expect there would always be proprietary material in Microsoft formats, and that their clients understand this." The MS OOXML proposal is not 'enough of a standard' to make it useful for all developers and users because it is undefined both legally and technically. This will devalue a standards based approach in information formats. The process for the OOXML format has been closed in its development phase and structured to reduce meaningful review. The result is a vendor centric document which is inward looking in its implementation. Standards usually are developed to enable consolidation of current best practices and they need to be written and legally framed so that they are reliable and safe to use. ODF provides this function. OOXML undoes that work by approximating a standard but being sufficiently noncompliant to provide data compatibility problems with material matching existing standards. Competing standards I feel that standards organisations need to take a stand to recognise the value in the work they have done on ODF XML SVG and to stand firm to support them. In each case where there is a multiple standard there is a cost to the wider community in accommodating multiple approaches to the same function space. Forking the market into two separate standards to cover the same material is not a step forward. The market in documents has been vendor oriented for many years. Open Document Format was developed as a common format two years ago. The purpose was to agree on a way to make information accessible regardless of vendor. The effect of the OOXML proposal is undo that commonality. Document specification is a core requirement in our information and computing based economies and therefore the cost of multiple standards in this fundamental space is an expensive outcome. In any case where an information format is as fundamental as this there will be increased temptation for vendors to try to find ways to gain control of the space. ISO has approved a standard which has worked through this space and is continuing to develop and refine functions. Introducing a vendor based standard at this point would compromise all that work in negotiating common ground. While the market might include many products which match specific vendors, the role of the standard in that space is to share information regardless of vendor. A single vendor standard on the other hand operates as a kind of franchise over a sector of the market. >From Andy Updegrove: "The best reason for not approving OOXML/Ecma 376 as a global standard is that it will encourage other vendors to push for multiple, unnecessary standards rather than achieving consensus on a single standard that will best serve the needs of all stakeholders, and not individual proprietary vendors." http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070629070544217&mode=print The Australian Commonwealth memorandum of understanding with Standards Australia is certainly written around these kinds of values related to public benefit and national interest. I understand that in negotiating a useful and meaningful standard there will be competing and challenging choices to make and that there has been a move toward accepting plural standards for different vendors, possibly to reduce contention in these processes. However I feel this move shifts the contention into the marketplace and reduces the value of standards to the wider community. Existing standards which are contradicted by the material included in the OOXML proposal include - ODF (document xml) - OOXML doesn't use the stablished SVG (vector based xml) but on the contrary two private and exclusive formats, one of them legacy: VML and GraphML - OOXML doesn't use the stablished MathML (mathematical markup) but its proprietary format (already rejected by scientific editorials which make deep use of that feature for Nature and Science) - OOXML doesn't use the International date and time (ISO 8601), the basic of all economic, legal and political transactions in world. On the contrary uses two calendars, one limited to start recently, in 1904, and other the one used by the Roman Empire thousand of years ago, the Julian Calendar. Rather than passing a proposal which conflicts so fundamentally with standards practice Microsoft should be encouraged to participate in constructive collaboration on the development of those projects. This would better serve the standards process than initiation of a second set of materials which non-Microsoft people would have trouble interoperating with, and which would undo our ability to share information using conforming standards. OOXML is not functionally open The name of the proposal OOXML is Office Open XML, this is a misleading name as the proposal is not fully open, its development has not been open, process for new versions is suggested to be through ECMA's closed process, the legal access to "enough rights to implement the standard" are not clearly provided. Wording inside the proposal includes 'wordwrap like Microsoft97' which is subjective and unimplementable language and would be unlikely to pass in a proper ISO process. The format includes proprietary binary material which is not open. This is perhaps a work which contributes to better documentation of existing Microsoft formats in terms which are useful for Microsoft related developers but it is not outward looking or well integrated with ISO standards which it is likely to interface with. Clients who believe they are moving from a closed format to an open format will find it is only comparably more open but is not drafted in a way to make it transparent or easy to avoid vendor lock in. Making this a standard in my opinion makes the standards bodies complicit in duping customers into adopting a format which is not truly representative of the criteria which are normally recognised as ISO. The value of formal standards Standards are increasingly important as our economies and information becomes more transnational. We cannot afford to be imprecise with data working at the scales which are now possible. Working with live transactional data would be a situation where explicit single outcome processes would be most important. Mapping those sensitive projects to a format which is built on a single vendor retrospective is not a recipe for safe eCommerce. "[A] document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context NOTE Standards should be based on the consolidated results of science, technology and experience, and aimed at the promotion of optimum community benefits." -- ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004, Definition 3.2 The value of formal standards is to find a best practice approach to common agreed functionality. To use that as a unifying reference point in order to ensure developers of systems have a way to map to an exact and accessible reference. And that customers of products are able to choose from solutions by a range of vendors and to move their information from one to another without prejudice. This makes it possible for multiple providers to participate in a market and for consumers to make flexible choices about the formats and applications which suit their needs on an ongoing basis. I feel that Australian and other standards bodies need to take this opportunity to review their function in society and to consider that the point of difference they offer is to contribute a means for finding negotiated best practice. This is a craft in the truest sense. It involves people developing skills in understanding systems objectively and in working through issues to find a useful and reliable outcome. Companies which have a large market share already enjoy a kind of default standard status through cost to change, skill base or in some cases through data lock-in. Formal standards processes need the ability to attract quality participation in collaboration of standards development by using processes which do not marginalise collaborative processes and goals in favour of competitive processes. ie. Without a focus on common interest and collaboration the formal process will only be able to mirror market share and will not be able to move Australia forward in a flexible and broadly useful manner. ECMA fast track process The ooxml proposal is a very large document(6000pages) and has been pushed through in 6 months. It has been suggested in the Australian meeting that this made it impossible to review. The volume/time compares poorly with usual standards which are 50 pages and take approximately 2 years to review thoroughly. ODF is 1000 pages itself and is considered large for a standards document but at least it was processed in an open way and there was room for all parties to contribute to its definition as well as a standard process of review. The ECMA fast track process is structured in such a way that it does not honor aspirations of public benefit and national interest. The value that ECMA offers its vendor customers is to "offer a path which will minimise changes to input specs" http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/OOXML_Forum.pdf The process is a product offered to vendors by a provider who benefits from being able to push through many projects. This means the original relationship between the vendor and the ECMA organisation is based around momentum and single source material with no benefit to either party in providing real and rigorous review or participation in development. This together with the idea that multiple vendors offering vendor specific 'standards' is a workable approach are the underlying assumptions which derail the rest of the process. While it is expected that there may be different approaches to technologies and products, it is the role of a standards group to identify points of best practice around which an industry can integrate and offer flexible choices to consumers. This relies on access to a process where the craft of standards writing is core, where the considered and 'hands-on' input of many participants in the given standard is facilitated and where the proposal is thoroughly tested for its interoperability with existing standards. Open review and participation in developing the standard is the means by which unifying and consolidating outcomes are made. This is the role which all groups interested in long term safe access to knowledge look to standards bodies for. Australian process and responsibility I sense a 'good faith' spirit in the efforts of the Standards Australia staff. However I feel that the fast track process applied to this proposal, both in Australia and internationally, is structurally not able to deliver outcomes in the Australian and public best interest. We need to address these procedural issues prior to processing this proposal so that it can be considered in a way which does address the goals of the Commonwealth in applying these standards processes to proposals. Difficulty in finding out information about the process has not helped, including meeting information and formats for responses. Australia as a country with an important role in these proceedings should not take an uncritical role in these processes. There needs to be a method for identifying when a new approach to processing standards is disfunctional. It is in Australia's national interest to understand the core function that open standards play in enabling all businesses and organisations to safely participate in working to or adapting from a standard format. Accessibility and accuracy are prominent requirements within the education sector. As James Dalziel pointed out in the Australian meeting, Australia leads on technologies for the education sector. Access to knowledge is an increasing piority and being able to share information developed with public funds is becoming an important issue. Organsiations which are able to develop once and distribute the value across the sector offer efficiencies which are valuable. Australian companies and developers would find it expensive to accommodate two complex and incompatible approaches to documents requiring two approaches to each project they deliver. We need to be more sophisticated in our choices because we need to be able to make better value from smaller projects. Australia has many smaller players which means we need to be able to do things in a develop once use flexibly kind of way. Developers who produce technologies which help with accessibility also need to be nimble and flexible to cater effectively to small markets. The University of Toronto recognises these issues "This paper undertakes a preliminary analysis of the OOXML format with respect to its accessibility, with emphasis on accessibility to persons with disabilities. We will demonstrate that the OOXML format fails to adequately support accessibility of documents." http://atrc.utoronto.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=371&Itemid=94 Backwards compatibility Work on translating the legacy document formats into an xml based format is a worthwhile project. If Microsoft have a reliable tool for mapping material out of those formats into parsable XML that is a great step forward for their clients and for the ongoing relevance of their applications. Unfortunately it is my understanding that the technique for translating the documents involves embedding binary material in the XML. OOXML is also a new-'old format', the time, date, vector, math models used in the new format are still reflective of historical choices and do not represent current best practice. In order to truly be facing forwards the material from the closed formats should be parsable XML and to match existing ISO standards. If the OOXML approach is not able to deliver on these outcomes then it is a great step forward from opacity to translucency but is not the full journey. Security, transactions and XML with embedded binary material Transactions are not a point of difference to existing standards for OOXML. Transactions are the normal function of XML and the specific focus of EBXML. The OOXML approach to formats includes binary material. Embedding binary material in transactional secure XML is likely to cause security issues. The transactional material has been developed only to work with MS Internet Explorer which is the browser of choice for internet based exploits. Designing a transaction solution around embedding unknown content in an eCommerce context, to match only a singler vendor's formats and applications would be unlikely to pass a regular standards process. Vote Australia's Standards organisation should vote no with comments. The comments should reflect our concerns with the principles and process of Fast Track standards development using ECMA. The proposal should be put on hold until a review of the goals, responsibilities and processes for formal standards are completed. This to include establishing a standard independently known and safe scoping for legal safety of any material which is ISO accredited. We cannot rely on unseen information and vendor assurances. There should be a known legal scope for all ISO standards. The proposal could then be reconsidered, including whether a second standard in this space is a useful project for good standards practice. These factors to be considered first before any further work and consideration is given to working through the body of the proposal. It is possible that after reconsidering the processes and overlap between existing standards and OOXML that it might be possible to use aspects of the translation from legacy formats to map to Open Document Format and to translate from other non standard models to match other ISO standards. >From that point forward it could be also useful to look at the way Microsoft have worked with transactions, to compare those with existing standards and practices and to see if there is any scope for finding unity in those approaches. 6000 pages is too large. Breaking the proposal into - retrospective work mapping to ODF or other standards. - new work starting from an ODF and ISO standard compliant base would help to make the size of the standard less of an obstacle for implementation. Specifications for non standard implementations of vector, math, time and date, could be included in the retrospective work but should not need to be a part of the forward looking standard format. Further to the action on this proposal and on the international Fast Track process I would suggest that Standards Australia, and if applicable other nations, review their own processes and advice around the role of participants in the review process. The memorandum of understanding between Standards Australia and the Commonwealth is written in terms of public benefit and national interest. This contrast with the participant information on the Standards Australia website which talks about representing specific groups and their own interests. This generates a tension between the overall goal of developing unifying standards in the national interest, and a process which encourages people to view the process as a partisan practice. The process for any standard being considered should be clearly available on the website. The phases and formats required for public or industry participation should be available throughout the process. Criteria for evaluation of a good standard for a given function should be identified and agreed in order to give a focus to the conversations. Existing standards which may overlap should be identified. If the criteria are listed and available this makes it far more likely that people will be able to anticipate missing concerns or concerns which are not core. It provides a purpose which enables collaboration as well as competition around meeting known objectives. I feel it would be useful to provide some workshops or communication around what kind of skills resources and time are required to participate. ie Australia needs to consider how it resources the process of standards development in order to produce outcomes which have vision beyond vendor interests. I value very much the role that standards bodies have to play for our innovative and social function and hope that Standards Australia feels that OOXML is NOT "enough of a standard" and that while it might be true that Microsoft formats will always have proprietary components, that kind of fancy footwork is not compatible with ISO and Standards Australia branding. Thankyou for the opportunity to participate. Janet Hawtin From marghanita at ramin.com.au Mon Aug 13 10:28:56 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 10:28:56 +1000 Subject: [LINK] It's baaack---net filtering In-Reply-To: <46BCEDF5.8070208@lannet.com.au> References: <61fg7n$4tq215@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BBBD8D.9080902@praxis.com.au> <1186710419.27562.63.camel@karl> <46BC0B1F.7080700@ramin.com.au> <46BCEDF5.8070208@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46BFA5C8.9040509@ramin.com.au> > 10 August 2007 > Libraries' commitment to internet safety already evident > > [ pdf 396KB ] > > The Australian Library and Information Association has rejected the description of public library filtering efforts as an "abject failure" made by The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, the Hon Helen Coonan this morning in her announcement regarding new moves to enforce internet filtering through the 'NetAlert - Protecting Australian Families Online' program. Howard Lowndes wrote: > I had to deal with one of these religious families a while back. > > They decided that they would apply very strict controls on their kid's > web browser and would allow only material that was certified (PICS ??) > to be viewed, and they then wondered why nothing was getting through. > > I don't think much material of any type is rated... > > Marghanita da Cruz wrote: >> Karl Auer wrote: >>> On Fri, 2007-08-10 at 11:21 +1000, Rick Welykochy wrote: >>>> It is wrong to assume that net filtering systems can be maintained >>>> in a secure manner by parents. >>> >>> "Kids interpret censorship as failure and route around it" :-) >>> >> ..... >> Every Australian family will be provided with a free internet filter >> and the >> federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service >> providers to filter pornography at the source. >> >> Communications and Australian Federal Police resources will be boosted >> immediately to expand checks on internet chat rooms to detect child >> predators, >> and privacy laws masking sex offenders on the net will be altered. >> >> The Prime Minister unveiled his new net commandments last night on a >> webcast to >> more than 700 churches and thousands of churchgoers around the >> country....... >> >> >> > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From brendansweb at optusnet.com.au Mon Aug 13 11:22:47 2007 From: brendansweb at optusnet.com.au (Brendan Scott) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:22:47 +1000 Subject: SMH site was: Re: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133723@cal066.act.gov.au> References: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133723@cal066.act.gov.au> Message-ID: <46BFB267.6000102@optusnet.com.au> Pilcher, Fred wrote: > Brendan wrote: >> Of course for the refugees of this web site revamp there is always >> (the bit austere): http://www.smh.com.au/text/ > > I'd change "austere" to "brilliant". They took it down some time ago, > but then replaced it - I assume after a deluge of protest. It also highlights the relative prevalence of "entertainment" news. Brendan From gdt at gdt.id.au Mon Aug 13 11:37:00 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:07:00 +0930 Subject: [LINK] re: Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard In-Reply-To: <20070812023806.0A1199BC@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> References: <20070812023806.0A1199BC@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <1186969020.3296.48.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Sun, 2007-08-12 at 12:33 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote: > The comments show a number of shortcomings in Standards Australia's > processes. But I suspect that much of the controversy about the > meeting is due to a misunderstanding over the fast track > international standards process used. Rather than asking "is this > good enough to be a standard?" the process essentially says "is this > so bad it should NOT be made a standard?". Tom, I'm afraid the Fast Track process actually work the other way -- there is procedurally no mechanism to stop a draft standard launched on the ISO JTC1 Fast Track. The current ISO ballot allows three possibilities - abstain. - approve -- the draft is published as is. - disapprove with comments -- the draft will go to a Ballot Resolution Meeting where all comments will be resolved until a consensus to approve the draft standard is reached. My feeling is that Standards Australia want to vote "approve, with comments" at ISO but as NIST noted when voting "disapprove, with comments" in the USA National Body, such a choice does not exist. An "approve, with comments" is precisely the same as "approve". If there is a truly bad standard launched down the Fast Track there is no procedural mechanism to abandon it. Yet this is what really needs to happen with OOXML and its authors send back to the drawing board, probably asked to improve ODF rather than propose a second format. This is partly the reason Standards Australia are feeling such pain on this one. Many of the participants want an outcome that ISO's processes are not set up to deliver. And SA are trying to avoid defending such a broken process. > Rick seemed to be supporting OOXML and says it is not difficult to > implement. Considering Microsoft paid Rick to write the Wikipedia page on OOXML, I'm not surprised. I was surprised that he didn't disclose this up-front at the Forum. As for difficult to implement it depends what you want to do. If you want to pull some fields out of a form then ODF and OOXML are much of a muchness, although ODF fully complies with the XML specification whereas OOXML may break some XML parsers, especially in non-Latin countries. My understanding is that Rick's comments applied to parsing a document for field extraction (or what we might call "work flow processing" if we were sales people). But if you want to build a competing word processor, spreadsheet, etc then you are bound to examine each of OOXML's sometimes insanely complex fields in order to achieve compatibility. Worse still, OOXML references a heap of other Microsoft-specific file formats. So math formula are in Microsoft's OMML rather than in MathML, vector drawings are in Microsoft's DrawingML rather than SVG, bitmaps are in Microsoft'e EMF rather than PNG. So a competing product can't build on other people's work, by calling an existing MathML, SVG or PNG library. It has to construct supporting libraries for the Microsoft-unique formats too. In short, OOXML sets a really tall hurdle for a competing product. This was Lars from Google's point at the Forum. If he were to support OOXML in Google Apps and Docs then it would be a "career ending job" -- he would work on OOXML compatibility for the rest of his career. Apps and Docs supports ODF today, it was about a six month job to convert to ODF from the previous proprietary format. > But, like the reported position of National Archives of > Australia (NAA), I think it will be more difficult to support an > additional international standard format (OOXML), than it would be to > just use the existing one (ODF). It's not clear to me if the Fast Track process can cope with an irreconcilable comment such as "OOXML duplicates the field of application of ODF". I don't think it can. Microsoft's response has been to claim that OOXML has a wider field of application than ODF -- it claims OOXML can be used as part of a XML workflow. This is true, but it is also true of ODF. As you would expect, since ODF was written by OASIS, who's major goal is an interoperating set of XML workflow standards (SOA, SAML, etc). > Rick argues that government agencies, such as NAA, don't have to > implement OOXML, as Standards Australia is not a government body. There's a MoU between the Commonwealth and SA: 4.2 The Commonwealth recognises Standards Australia as the peak non-government standards development body in Australia. Noting that there is no comprehensive governmental standards development body. The quasi law-making power of Standards Australia is recognised by the Commonwealth: 5.4 Where Government seeks the development of Australian Standards for regulatory purposes, Standards Australia will endeavour to ensure that they are drafted in a form suitable for referencing in legislation/regulation and that they represent a minimum effective solution. > However, SA is a government endorsed body for making standards and so > its advice is likely to influence Australian government agencies. If > agencies send NAA documents in OOXML, then it will have to accept > them (and most likely convert them to ODF for long term storage). It's the OOXML-->ODF conversion that is the problem. As long as OOXML is a vendor-specific format then that vendor has an interest in achieving compliance with international standards by allowing simple document export to ODF. Once OOXML is also an international standard the motivation for Microsoft to support ODF at all disappears. Supporting ODF only reduces the friction of a company moving away from Microsoft, and that isn't in Microsoft's interest. What really hacks me off is that ISO are so close to getting what they want. Everything supports ODF today -- even Office has an exporter. Nearly every product has adopted ODF as its native format -- the only major exception is Microsoft Office. Making OOXML a standard is a step backward from where we are today. There will no longer be a common format for moving office documents between applications. Cheers, Glen PS: I'll be writing to ACS shortly to encourage then to request a vote for "disapprove" from Standards Australia. From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Mon Aug 13 11:31:43 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:31:43 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: References: <20070812174310.AA67E16FB8@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <635bd2180708121526v29ce8b5dx2048c8cf379f0189@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <61fg7n$4v7arn@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 09:38 AM 13/08/2007, Paul Bolger wrote: >Grizzly bear kills couple in Alaska >Leopard kills 4-year-old in Bombay >Biologist survives second bear attack >Julia Roberts gives birth to baby boy >Alligator kills Florida man in canal > >Spot the odd one out! Must be the one about the leopard. The rest are in the US, and those *must* be the most important stories. Makes one wonder what Julia did to the kid, doesn't it? ;-) Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From cjsvance at gmail.com Mon Aug 13 11:56:03 2007 From: cjsvance at gmail.com (Christopher Vance) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:56:03 +1000 Subject: [LINK] re: Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard In-Reply-To: <1186969020.3296.48.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <20070812023806.0A1199BC@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> <1186969020.3296.48.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: I understand the problem to be that there are only two possible outcomes: OOXML becomes an ISO standard, substantially as it is now OOXML remains an ECMA standard, as it is, but fails to become an ISO standard The question is merely yes/no, with no ability on ISO's part to adopt stuff significantly different to the existing ECMA standard, beyond minor editorial changes. It is quite common for ECMA and other standards to be adopted as ISO standards, but the process only allows certain kinds of changes. The underlying assumption of the mechanism is that substantive weaknesses are resolved before the other organization finalises its version of the standard. I leave it to you decide whether ECMA failed to do this, or whether it can be excused on the grounds that ECMA have different purposes and methods compared to ISO. (Before you whinge at ECMA, I will say that you can get ECMA standards for free, while ISO charges like a wounded bull.) To do it "right" would require an ISO SC and WG doing significantly more. But why would JTC1 bother allowing this, when there's already the other standard? -- Christopher From eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au Mon Aug 13 12:39:42 2007 From: eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au (Eric Scheid) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:39:42 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Apple beats Microsoft at its own Open XML game Message-ID: http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?id=933393484&eid=-4152 Apple's release of iWork '08 last week is "embarrassing," an analyst said Friday, not for its maker, but for Apple's rival, Microsoft. Tuesday, Apple rolled out a refreshed iWork that added a spreadsheet, dubbed Numbers, to the earlier mix of a word processor/page layout Pages and presentation maker Keynote. But it was iWork's ability to handle the Open XML file format -- the new native format for Microsoft's own Office 2007 application suite -- that Michael Gartenberg of JupiterResearch talked about. "This was the ultimate insult to injury," Gartenberg said. "Not only has Microsoft not delivered the ability to read and write Open XML in its Mac Office, but at the end of the day, Apple was the one who delivered." Gartenberg referred to Microsoft's problems developing Office 2008 for Mac, which the company announced last week would be delayed until mid-January. Among the roadblocks, said Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MBU), is the shift to Open XML as Office 2008's native file format. The company has also been slow in releasing conversion tools that let earlier editions of its Mac suite work with Office 2007's Open XML documents. "This is embarrassing for MBU," Gartenberg said. "It has said that the shift to Intel has caused [its] problems, and changes in development tools, and the file format, too. But every other major vendor has pretty much managed to get their apps over to Intel [on the Mac]. Microsoft is one of the oldest Mac developers out there, so it's not like it doesn't have experience [on the platform]." IWork '08 applications can open the OpenXML formats churned out by their Office 2007 counterparts -- Pages with Word, Numbers with Excel, Keynote with PowerPoint -- but cannot save in those formats. Currently, Office 2004 and Office v. X users can both open Word and PowerPoint Open XML files and save in those formats using beta converters MBU has issued. No such converter has been released that handles Excel 2007's Open XML files, however. Ironically, one of those who praised iWork's handling of the Microsoft file format was a program manager for Office 2007. "[iWork '08] reads the Office Open XML files with very high fidelity," said Brian Jones on his company blog. At the same time, Jones defended his fellow developers at Microsoft in MBU. "The Mac Office folks have a ton of stuff they are working on for the next version, so it's not surprising that you aren't seeing full Open XML support until they reach that point," Jones said in response to a question asking how Microsoft lost the race to Apple's iWork. "Office for the Mac is just not a real priority for Microsoft," said Gartenberg as he spelled out his take for Microsoft's tardiness creating software on the Mac that can handle what are, after all, its own file formats. "And that's not likely to change anytime soon." Asked to explain why Microsoft hasn't been able to match Apple, MBU's marketing manager, Amanda Lefebvre, ticked off the development issues that have delayed Office 2008. "The transition to the new file format is one of several reasons the development cycle is longer with Office 2008," she said. "Office 2008 [for Mac] will run natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs with a Universal Binary [and] this transition necessitated a switch to a new set of development tools as well. The combination of these two technology shifts definitely impacted our schedule." Not quite, Gartenberg said. "What this really shows is Microsoft's inability to ship software on time these days," he said. Apple, meanwhile, is doing the smart thing. "They're making sure that they're not dependent on Microsoft for any of the important software [for the Mac]," said Gartenberg. That strategy, along with the US$79 price of iWork and the window of opportunity because of Office 2008's delay, puts Cupertino in the cat bird seat. "It's going to be hard for Microsoft to get those people who try and buy iWork back," he said. "Microsoft's let down its Mac customers." From marghanita at ramin.com.au Mon Aug 13 12:52:01 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:52:01 +1000 Subject: [LINK] IBM has a vested interest NOT seeing OOXML adopted as an ISO standard. Message-ID: <46BFC751.6060502@ramin.com.au> > IBM has a vested interest NOT seeing OOXML adopted as an ISO standard. Why? IBM's latest collaboration platform, IBM Lotus, and IBM Lotus Notes 8 includes word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software relying on ODF. IBM would love to see ODF exist as the most widely adopted open file format standard: It benefits their go-to-market initiatives for IBM Lotus, especially in developing countries that don't have the Microsoft legacy that the US or Western Europe has. -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Mon Aug 13 13:29:09 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:29:09 +1000 Subject: [LINK] re: Australian consultation on proposed OOXML standard In-Reply-To: References: <20070812023806.0A1199BC@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> <1186969020.3296.48.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <46BFD005.9010806@ramin.com.au> Christopher Vance wrote: > I understand the problem to be that there are only two possible outcomes: > > OOXML becomes an ISO standard, substantially as it is now > > OOXML remains an ECMA standard, as it is, but fails to become an ISO standard I don't think the second option is possible. And changes could be but seem not being proposed. A no vote needs to be accompanied by enough stuff for the working group to consider and enable them to adapt the standard to obtain a yes vote. > > Six questions to national standardisation bodies > The following six questions relate to the application of the ECMA/MS-OOXML format to be accepted as an IEC/ISO standard. Unless a national standardisation body has conclusive answers to all of them, it should vote no in IEC/ISO and request that Microsoft incorporate its work on MS-OOXML into ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document Format). Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Mon Aug 13 13:33:16 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:33:16 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Apple beats Microsoft at its own Open XML game In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133741@cal066.act.gov.au> Eric posted: > Apple's release of iWork '08 last week is "embarrassing," an > analyst said > Friday, not for its maker, but for Apple's rival, Microsoft. There's an online petition asking Apple to make iWork support ODF. http://www.petitiononline.com/appleodf/petition.html Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From lucychili at gmail.com Mon Aug 13 14:09:07 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:39:07 +0930 Subject: [LINK] IBM has a vested interest NOT seeing OOXML adopted as an ISO standard. In-Reply-To: <46BFC751.6060502@ramin.com.au> References: <46BFC751.6060502@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: On 8/13/07, Marghanita da Cruz wrote: > > IBM has a vested interest NOT seeing OOXML adopted as an ISO standard. Why? IBM's latest collaboration platform, IBM Lotus, and IBM Lotus Notes 8 includes word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software relying on ODF. IBM would love to see ODF exist as the most widely adopted open file format standard: It benefits their go-to-market initiatives for IBM Lotus, especially in developing countries that don't have the Microsoft legacy that the US or Western Europe has. > Many people have vested interests in this process. For me the underlying concern is around what an ISO really means and whether this proposal supports standards in a functional sense or detracts from them. Microsoft is also able to support odf formats and to compete with IBM in an open document format. Using the format as a client fencing strategy is not what standards are about. Janet From kim at cynosure.com.au Mon Aug 13 14:16:19 2007 From: kim at cynosure.com.au (Kim Davies) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:16:19 +0000 Subject: [LINK] Apple beats Microsoft at its own Open XML game In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070813041619.GA21708@malaria> Quoting Eric Scheid on Monday August 13, 2007: | | But it was iWork's ability to handle the Open XML file format -- the | new native format for Microsoft's own Office 2007 application suite -- | that Michael Gartenberg of JupiterResearch talked about. | ... | Ironically, one of those who praised iWork's handling of the Microsoft file | format was a program manager for Office 2007. "[iWork '08] reads the Office | Open XML files with very high fidelity," said Brian Jones on his company | blog. It is hard not to agree with the arguments against the adoption of OOXML as an ISO standard for the substantial variety of deficiencies that have been enumerated on this list. However one of the arguments is that the OOXML format is not easy, or even impossible, to implement faithfully. The fact that Apple was able to churn out a reader -- which is the hard part of implementation -- in about six months is quite an impressive feat. It begs the question how much of the specification they implemented, and how it treats some of the poorly documented aspects of OOXML. kim From eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au Mon Aug 13 18:47:32 2007 From: eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au (Eric Scheid) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:47:32 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Google's photos of Sydney go all fuzzy Message-ID: Much of Sydney's CBD as it appears in the satellite images on Google Maps Australia has been fuzzed out, just weeks before the APEC summit. Google says the imagery was downgraded as a result of a "commercial issue" with a supplier, but the move has aroused speculation it was done at the request of police in order to minimise the risk of a terrorist attack during the September summit, where Sydney will play host to 21 world leaders including U.S. President George W. Bush. -------------- The fuzzification is quite odd - normally, there are blocks you can zoom right in close, and blocks which result in "no image at this resolution", but this fuzzification includes a merging of different resolutions. This is most obvious when zooming in to the boats on in Farm Cove ... the bay they are in are at a low resolution, but the boat itself and the water immediately around it, in a boat shaped area, is at high resolution. Similarly for a couple of the boats in Circular Quay. Clumsy. e. From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Mon Aug 13 19:28:52 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:28:52 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Google's photos of Sydney go all fuzzy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <61fg7n$4vfkif@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 06:47 PM 13/08/2007, Eric Scheid wrote: >The fuzzification is quite odd - normally, there are blocks you can zoom >right in close, and blocks which result in "no image at this resolution", >but this fuzzification includes a merging of different resolutions. If you go in close enough, the Opera House does flip to no image available indicators, while the area to the left is still there. You can tell what's missing by the insert in the lower right. I don't blame them for doing this, but they shouldn't lie about it. Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From adrian at creative.net.au Mon Aug 13 20:00:19 2007 From: adrian at creative.net.au (Adrian Chadd) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:00:19 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Google's photos of Sydney go all fuzzy In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4vfkif@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <61fg7n$4vfkif@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <20070813100019.GT28256@skywalker.creative.net.au> On Mon, Aug 13, 2007, Jan Whitaker wrote: > At 06:47 PM 13/08/2007, Eric Scheid wrote: > > >The fuzzification is quite odd - normally, there are blocks you can zoom > >right in close, and blocks which result in "no image at this resolution", > >but this fuzzification includes a merging of different resolutions. > > If you go in close enough, the Opera House does flip to no image > available indicators, while the area to the left is still there. You > can tell what's missing by the insert in the lower right. I don't > blame them for doing this, but they shouldn't lie about it. Obviously anyone who may be planning an attack has only decided to begin planning for it now and not months ago.. Adrian From jwhit at janwhitaker.com Mon Aug 13 20:05:34 2007 From: jwhit at janwhitaker.com (Jan Whitaker) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:05:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] be careful what the govt bequeaths Message-ID: <61fg7n$4vg66l@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> This is sad and probably what John Howard has in mind with his recent pre-election pork barrels of money. Then he can blame the states (again) for having things fall apart. In Howard's mind: win win: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/12/AR2007081201244_pf.html Upkeep Of Security Devices A Burden By Mary Beth Sheridan Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 13, 2007; A01 In 2003, the FBI used a $25 million grant to give bomb squads across the nation state-of-the-art computer kits, enabling them to instantly share information about suspected explosives, including weapons of mass destruction. Four years later, half of the Washington area's squads can't communicate via the $12,000 kits, meant to be taken to the scene of potential catastrophes, because they didn't pick up the monthly wireless bills and maintenance costs initially paid by the FBI. Other squads across the country also have given up using them. "They worked, and it was a good idea -- until the subscription ran out," said Mike Love, who oversees the bomb squad in Montgomery County's fire department. At the local level, he said, "there is not budget money for it." Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the area has received more than $1 billion in federal money to strengthen first responders and secure the region. That money has bought satellite phones, radios, protective suits, water-security monitors and a host of other items. But local officials are grappling with how to maintain the huge infusion of equipment. Like a driver whose 5-year-old luxury sedan has worn-out brakes, cracked tires and engine problems, local governments are facing hefty bills to keep their gear working. The region has a long list of terrorism-fighting items that need parts and service. Officials recently set aside nearly one-fifth of the area's latest federal homeland security grant -- about $12 million -- to cover maintenance over the next two years. The shopping list includes $120,000 in new batteries for emergency radios; $400,000 to maintain chemical and radiation monitors for rivers; and $250,000 in replacement equipment for top officials' videoconferencing system. Wanting to avoid a maintenance time bomb, governments are starting to plan for the end of the decade, when state and local jurisdictions will probably be forced to shoulder most of the costs. "There's an agreement we're going to start weaning ourselves, such that more and more, we'll pick up" the maintenance costs, said Fairfax County Executive Anthony H. Griffin, who heads a committee of local government administrators working on the grants. In some cases, officials are slowing homeland security projects while the question of upkeep is worked out. This year, for example, the region asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for more than $13 million to build a broadband wireless network for emergency workers. In the end, officials decided to spend just $1 million -- on plans that will determine the maintenance costs. Behind such caution is concern that the anti-terrorism dollars that have rained down on the D.C. area in recent years might begin to dry up. Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, warned cities recently that the grants were not like Social Security checks that would arrive year after year. "In fact, as communities begin to build their capabilities, we should see them getting less money," Chertoff said at a news conference. The FBI bomb-kit program shows how even the best-intentioned plans to equip first responders can go awry over the simple question of maintenance. The program was requested in 1999 by Congress, which had been alarmed by a nerve-gas attack on a Tokyo subway that killed 12 people and sickened thousands. Legislators set aside $25 million for the FBI to prepare state and local bomb squads to deal with weapons of mass destruction. The FBI developed a special suitcase of tools that bomb squads could take to scenes. The core of the kit was a rugged wireless laptop loaded with files describing explosives and chemical and biological agents. The kit also included a digital camera so technicians could snap a picture of any strange device and e-mail it to FBI bomb experts for quick advice. "It was a unique communication tool," said FBI Special Agent Barbara Martinez, a top official in the agency's Critical Incident Response Group. The "Cobra kits" were handed out to nearly 400 state and local bomb squads across the country in 2003. Each came with a prepaid three-year service agreement and a one-year wireless card. But apparently, no one realized that the squads might not have the cash to maintain the wireless subscription. Local officials said it could run $60 a month per kit, totaling a few hundred dollars for a squad with several kits. Also, the kits needed periodic updates, which could run into the hundreds or thousands of dollars, they said. "It was quite expensive for the local jurisdictions to absorb the cost," said Jerry Swain, bomb-squad commander for Loudoun County. Montgomery's Love said his department had to stop paying for the system in 2005, just two years after getting it. "Basically, we're still dealing with the same budget we had 10 years ago, except for personnel costs," he said. The D.C. and Arlington County police bomb squads also dropped the wireless subscription. The Prince George's County bomb squad chose to replace that system with other technology purchased through federal grants, a spokesman said. Some local squads said they had more pressing needs than maintaining the system, which they described as occasionally helpful but not essential. "To say it's something that's going to make or break us on the scene, I would say not," Swain said. Others said they found the kit valuable because of its wireless connection to other bomb experts and its copious reference material. "We could carry around 10 textbooks, but it's all there" in the computer, said Sgt. Thomas Sharkey, Metro's bomb-squad commander. Metro has continued to maintain its kits, as have bomb squads run by the Fairfax County police and Virginia State Police. Jeff Fuller, a spokesman for the National Bomb Squad Commanders Advisory Board, said that many squads had found the kits too expensive to maintain but that he didn't know how many stopped using it. Martinez, the FBI official, also said she did not know. Martinez said the kits were initially successful in teaching bomb technicians about weapons of mass destruction. Now, though, some of the kits are sitting unused, she acknowledged. "It is sad -- now you've got that paperweight doorstop out there," she said. But the FBI made it clear from the start that local and state squads would eventually have to pick up the maintenance costs, she said. "Maybe people didn't read the fine print," she added. FBI bomb technicians across the country have continued to maintain their kits and can take them to scenes to assist, she said. Was the project a bad use of $25 million? No, Martinez said, but she added, "I wish it came with the maintenance thing." Because of advances in technology, the 2003 kits would need significant upgrades to be effective now, she said. In this year's application for its homeland security grant, the region's bomb squads included a request to upgrade their Cobra kits and pay for wireless cards. But local officials say it is not clear whether they would use their funding award on the project because they have higher priorities for their squads, including protective suits and robots. "The last thing we want to do is put money into something the grant is not going to keep up over time," said Loudoun County Fire Marshal Keith Brower, who heads a regional committee overseeing bomb squads. "We're flagging those issues right now." Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From link at todd.inoz.com Mon Aug 13 21:53:14 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:53:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Google's photos of Sydney go all fuzzy In-Reply-To: <20070813100019.GT28256@skywalker.creative.net.au> References: <61fg7n$4vfkif@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <20070813100019.GT28256@skywalker.creative.net.au> Message-ID: <200708131154.l7DBsCfd005530@ah.net> At 08:00 PM 13/08/2007, Adrian Chadd wrote: >On Mon, Aug 13, 2007, Jan Whitaker wrote: > > At 06:47 PM 13/08/2007, Eric Scheid wrote: > > > > >The fuzzification is quite odd - normally, there are blocks you can zoom > > >right in close, and blocks which result in "no image at this resolution", > > >but this fuzzification includes a merging of different resolutions. > > > > If you go in close enough, the Opera House does flip to no image > > available indicators, while the area to the left is still there. You > > can tell what's missing by the insert in the lower right. I don't > > blame them for doing this, but they shouldn't lie about it. > >Obviously anyone who may be planning an attack has only decided to begin >planning for it now and not months ago.. Yep, terrorists haven't had time to worry about checking google maps and other aerial photos. Don't forget for $161 you can buy REALLY REALLY detailed images with overlay maps from Lands :) You can see the bolts on the Operahouse on those images! Jan you are right too, they shouldn't lie about it. From stephen at melbpc.org.au Tue Aug 14 04:17:34 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:17:34 GMT Subject: [LINK] website animations Message-ID: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> A thought .. Given the interest that a talking-animation seems to generate for a website, (check out her eyes) I'm guessing that in future websites will have animated hosts. It's early days, but I can see a pop-up google-mam animation hosting whole site visits? Cheers people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From cas at taz.net.au Tue Aug 14 07:20:29 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:20:29 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ABC News Critique In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708121526v29ce8b5dx2048c8cf379f0189@mail.gmail.com> References: <20070812174310.AA67E16FB8@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <635bd2180708121526v29ce8b5dx2048c8cf379f0189@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070813212029.GO4898@taz.net.au> On Mon, Aug 13, 2007 at 08:26:13AM +1000, George Bray wrote: > On 8/13/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > > > >From a news perspective, the ABC, arising from an audio / visual > > technology, needs quick and punchy sound bites. The newspaper > > websites have the measured analysis of news. The ABC primarily > > quotes experts or witnesses while newspaper sites analyze detail. > > That's a good point, Stephen. There's much more depth from the > broadsheets. Probably something to do with the attention span of the > audience. It feels like the ABC are trying to cover everything that > comes through their news feeds. not a lot more depth. none of the news services, not the broadsheets, not ABC News, not 7.30 Report, not Lateline *EVER* go into any detail on any government policies that are being debated. like the tabloids, they reduce it to a clash of personalities - Howard vs Bracks over Murray-Darling (but no details on Howard's proposed takeover), Howard vs Rudd (but no details on a variety of issues). the same on every other issue - it's just personality bullshit. craig -- craig sanders BOFH excuse #60: system has been recalled From stil at stilgherrian.com Tue Aug 14 07:39:46 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:39:46 +1000 Subject: [LINK] My prediction: Facebook will beat MySpace and newcomer iYomu and all Message-ID: Gentle Linkers, iYomu, "social networking for grown ups", officially launched yesterday at http://www.iyomu.com -- with US$1M in prize money up for grabs. I wrote an article for Crikey [subscriber-only content at http://www.crikey.com.au/Media-and-Arts/20070813-Why-MySpace-for-grown-ups-w ont-fly.html] explaining why I don't think it'll fly. I also reckon that in the long term Facebook will win out over MySpace. My argument in the Crikey article is that the key to success on the Internet is massive, uncontrolled growth. That means attracting a lot of users fast -- and then selling out to someone like Rupert Murdoch before it all implodes. The problem is, the very nature of iYomu works against that rapid growth. My article is at http://stilgherrian.com/internet/iyomu_versus_facebook/ and I'd appreciate comments -- especially if you can tear apart my arguments (politely, of course!). At the very least, you'll find a few choice quotes from an essay by danah boyd called "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace" which makes for interesting reading -- you'll find that at http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html -- and one on what "friend" means in social networking sites at http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/ Enjoy! ("Will you be my friend?") Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From ivan at itrundle.com Tue Aug 14 07:51:23 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:51:23 +1000 Subject: [LINK] website animations In-Reply-To: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> I predict that this will quickly join Microsoft's Clippy in the 'Let The Marketing Department Run The Business' category. iT On 13/08/2007, at 6:17 PM, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > A thought .. > > Given the interest that a talking-animation seems to generate > for a website, (check out her eyes) > I'm guessing that in future websites will have animated hosts. > > It's early days, but > I can see a pop-up google-mam animation hosting whole site visits? From stil at stilgherrian.com Tue Aug 14 08:29:20 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 08:29:20 +1000 Subject: [LINK] website animations In-Reply-To: <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> Message-ID: On 14/8/07 7:51 AM, "Ivan Trundle" wrote: > I predict that this will quickly join Microsoft's Clippy in the 'Let > The Marketing Department Run The Business' category. Personally, I reckon SitePal is the biggest load of shite. However Ralph E Wilson of Web Marketing Today http://www.wilsonweb.com has done A/B testing -- i.e. half the website visitors get the Friendly Simulated Human and half don't -- and finds that it significantly increases his sales conversion rate. Can't argue with science! He does make the point that it may not work for everyone, though. BTW, Wilson's site is a great source of information for doing business online. Once you get past his mid-west god-bless bonhomie, you'll find that he delivers is quite practical advice based on real-world experience. Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From kim at cynosure.com.au Tue Aug 14 08:36:37 2007 From: kim at cynosure.com.au (Kim Davies) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:36:37 +0000 Subject: [LINK] website animations In-Reply-To: <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> References: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> Message-ID: <20070813223637.GA27185@malaria> Quoting Ivan Trundle on Tuesday August 14, 2007: | I predict that this will quickly join Microsoft's Clippy in the 'Let | The Marketing Department Run The Business' category. | | >Given the interest that a talking-animation seems to generate | >for a website, (check out her eyes) | >I'm guessing that in future websites will have animated hosts. | > | >It's early days, but | >I can see a pop-up google-mam animation hosting whole site visits? This all seems like deja vu to me. Didn't boo.com launch to great fanfare some ten years ago with an avatar host just like this, only to cark it in a pool of red ink shortly thereafter? kim From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Tue Aug 14 08:49:21 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 08:49:21 +1000 Subject: [LINK] OzIT: 'Canberra plans citizen sample blog' Message-ID: [Comments at end] Canberra plans citizen sample blog The Australian IT Section Selina Mitchell | August 14, 2007 http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22238273-24169,00.html FEDERAL plans to enter the world of blogging are well under way, with a discussion paper due soon on the proposed "rules of engagement". The Howard Government wants to avoid a situation in which political or lobby groups infiltrate what should be a blogging site for the public to comment on policy. There are fears that the ease of anonymity on the web could be manipulated. It wouldn't be a free-for-all, but genuine and constructive comment would be welcomed, a spokesman for Special Minister of State Gary Nairn said. Mr Nairn announced that the Government's blogging project would be up and running in March. The aim is to promote a more interactive approach to policy development, via an official government website. At the moment the australia. gov.au website provides links to public consultations only. Some of the agencies using the service include the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Office of the Access Card, and the Office of the Privacy Commission. "I strongly encourage all agencies to take advantage of the public consultation capability," Mr Nairn said last week. In a speech at the Commonwealth Ombudsman 30th anniversary seminar, he said the Government was entering a third stage of engagement with citizens using information and communication technologies, in which "citizens actively shape policy options, but government retains the responsibility for final decisions". "The opportunities for government are to deliver more services faster to the areas that need services," Mr Nairn said. Citizens would be able to get more personal interactions and perhaps a greater understanding of, and involvement in, policy formation through e-consultation. Mr Nairn said the challenges for administration and the Commonwealth Ombudsman were that in some cases the issues that arose may not directly involve human interaction. "It could be the result of some type of automated process with a business rules engine sitting behind it that automates the legislation and regulations that apply to a specific situation." This could require the Ombudsman to have staff with very different technical skills. Mr Nairn said the other challenge for public administration was that, as the use of online services grew, agencies could need to increase the level of technology and resources devoted to e-government. [The Government is mouthing platitudes - and the Ombudsman is aiding and abetting it by pretending that the Government is actually interested in 'engagement'. And the last thing we need is the Ombudsman, a heavily bureaucratised agency, getting in between people and the government agencies that actually form policy and provide (contracts to companies to deliver) services. [Contemporary government is about 'spin', not consultation. The Office of Access Card has completely ignored submissions to it, including those by Privacy Commissioners. The Attorney-General's Dept and DFAT are similarly completely closed shops. Very few agencies provide any scope at all for public participation in policy formation and systems design. [This bit adopts one particular piece of Government spin: "The Howard Government wants to avoid a situation in which political or lobby groups infiltrate what should be a blogging site for the public to comment on policy". [It reflects the Government's acceptance of business associations but dismissal of the submissions of representative and advocacy groups. The justification used is self-interest - even though, unlike business associations, neither the organisations nor their pro bono officers benefit from the outcomes they are seeking. [Another element of this extremist Government's denial of public voice in the polity is its preclusion of tax-deductible status for any public interest organisation that has 'submissions to government' as part of its charter. [See: The Internet and Democracy - E-Politics http://www.agimo.gov.au/publications/2004/05/egovt_challenges/community/democracy/e-politics -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From eleanor at pacific.net.au Tue Aug 14 09:06:39 2007 From: eleanor at pacific.net.au (Eleanor Lister) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:06:39 +1000 Subject: [LINK] website animations In-Reply-To: <20070813223637.GA27185@malaria> References: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> <20070813223637.GA27185@malaria> Message-ID: <46C0E3FF.4040605@pacific.net.au> Kim Davies wrote: > Quoting Ivan Trundle on Tuesday August 14, 2007: > | I predict that this will quickly join Microsoft's Clippy in the 'Let > | The Marketing Department Run The Business' category. > | > | >Given the interest that a talking-animation seems to generate > | >for a website, (check out her eyes) > | >I'm guessing that in future websites will have animated hosts. > | > > | >It's early days, but > | >I can see a pop-up google-mam animation hosting whole site visits? > > This all seems like deja vu to me. Didn't boo.com launch to great > fanfare some ten years ago with an avatar host just like this, only to > cark it in a pool of red ink shortly thereafter? > > kim > i sure hope this carks it too ... i am getting very tired of setting up sites for suits that have not the faintest clue what's happening or how to use the site; so they demand ever flashier crap on the grounds that they are tapping into a market dynamic, which naturally a mere geek like me is too thick to cope with or understand. grrr regards, EL before coffee P.S: i'll be strangling some suits later .... wanna watch? ------------ Eleanor Ashley Lister South Sydney Greens http://ssg.nsw.greens.org.au webmistress at ssg.nsw.greens.org.au From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Tue Aug 14 09:52:12 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:52:12 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Flexible Architecture Research Center System Message-ID: <20070814000203.3A0341AAB@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Link Institute Linkgram For immediate release Flexible Architecture Research Center System Canberra, 1 August 2007: The Link Institute announced an advance in enhanced research and teaching for universities today with its Research Quotient Furniture for Flexible Architecture Research Center System (RQF-FARCS). The new system provides a building for researchers equipped with flexible walls which are adjusted based on the researchers productivity. Professor Klerphell, head of the Link Institute said: "Systems such as MIT iCampus have shown the value of flexible learning centers . The Link Institute has taken this one step further with flexible architecture for research. Our new building design literally changes it shape in response to the research undertaken. The Australian Government have introduced the Research Quality Framework (RQF) to better measure the output of Australian universities . At many institutions this is reflected in the promotions and pay of research staff. However this feedback mechanism is too slow for the dynamics of 21st century research. Also academic researchers are not necessarily motivated by money, finding the respect of their peers more rewarding. The Flexible Architecture Research Center System (FARCS) provides a more immediate and visible measure of the worth of each researcher. The system replaces fixed walls in university offices with a set of computer controlled motor operated partitions. Each evening the university electronic repository scans the online archive of academic journals published , citation indexes, media reports and other evidence of academic output. This is combined with a teaching weighting score and research funding attracted by each staff measure to produce a productivity index. During the night the system automatically moves the room partitions to adjust the size of each academic's office in proportion to their productivity. Sizes can range from a PHD "closet" to VC "suite". The next morning each staff member can see how productive they have been as measured against their peers, by the size of their office. The system can also cater for PHD students, adjusting room sizes up from scholarship students to full fee paying size (with allowance for any patent rights signed over to the university). Online universities with staff who work from home are catered for with virtual offices which adjust in size on the university's web site. Staff can also purchase additional floor space, per metre per day, using an auction system to adjust for demand." Further advances in university office design underway. Flat screen displays, already used for teaching rooms, are now displacing bookshelves in offices. "Books take up valuable space and no one looks at them anymore anyway" Klerphell said. The "V-book" (TM) system provides a realistic representation of an academic bookshelf, while freeing up 200mm of space. Staff sharing offices can take their virtual bookshelf with them on a USB flash drive or using a web address. Klerphell said: "Some have criticized numerical measure of academic output as just being about money. In this way we can show that there is more than money that academics respect: there is also floorspace". --- ;-) 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 From Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au Tue Aug 14 10:59:58 2007 From: Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au (Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:59:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Flexible Architecture Research Center System [SEC=UNOFFICIAL] In-Reply-To: <20070814000203.3A0341AAB@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <8DA55692F752634C955C1DDAF682629801C1B35F@acexp007.portfolio.base> Tom wrote: < References: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <46C1006F.4050703@praxis.com.au> stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Given the interest that a talking-animation seems to generate > for a website, (check out her eyes) > I'm guessing that in future websites will have animated hosts Think back to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I am glad that HAL did not have a facial persona. A few years back in Melbourne at the AV/Arts center near SBS just off Flinders St was an amazing presentation in the basement of the gallery. The artist (cannot remember his name!!) created an *interactive* talking animation. The viewer typed in sentences (usually questions) and the animation answered and kept the conversation going. Way ahead of its time. I got stuck in this gallery for about an hour, talking to this thing. Great fun. > It's early days, but > I can see a pop-up google-mam animation hosting whole site visits? Yup ... it is easier than reading the info, isn't it? I find it slightly amusing and a bit weird that when this thing stops talking it sits there blinking and nodding from side to side, in an attempt to give it a real look. cheers rickw From lucychili at gmail.com Tue Aug 14 11:18:01 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:48:01 +0930 Subject: [LINK] format for comments Message-ID: Have been sent a format for comments from the standards org Happy to forward it to others who might be interested in formatting their comments who might not have had the format message. Janet From rick at praxis.com.au Tue Aug 14 11:23:21 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 11:23:21 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Flexible Architecture Research Center System In-Reply-To: <20070814000203.3A0341AAB@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> References: <20070814000203.3A0341AAB@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <46C10409.4000203@praxis.com.au> Tom Worthington wrote: > "Systems such as MIT iCampus have shown the value of flexible learning > centers > . > The Link Institute has taken this one step further with flexible > architecture for research. Our new building design literally changes it > shape in response to the research undertaken. Terry Gilliam and team designed and implemented FARCS in the feature film Brazil some twenty-two years ago. Office space changed size according to unknown parameters, probably related to productivity. As well, Dylan Moran wrote of and implemented a domestic FARCS environment in an episode of the cult TV series Black Books when Fran's flat changed shape according to the activities of her next door neighbour. Neither Gilliam or Moran are or will be available for comment. cheers rickw From kauer at biplane.com.au Tue Aug 14 11:23:32 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 11:23:32 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Flexible Architecture Research Center System [SEC=UNOFFICIAL] In-Reply-To: <8DA55692F752634C955C1DDAF682629801C1B35F@acexp007.portfolio.base> References: <8DA55692F752634C955C1DDAF682629801C1B35F@acexp007.portfolio.base> Message-ID: <1187054612.14583.22.camel@karl> Tom wrote: > The Link Institute announced an advance in enhanced > research and teaching for universities today with its Research Quotient > Furniture for Flexible Architecture Research Center System (RQF-FARCS) One minor error in Tom's otherwise excellent report: The new body is more properly known as the Flexible Architecture Research Center Extentivisation System (FARCES). "Extentivisation" is a newly trademarked term coined by the Link Institute for this kind of dynamic, thrusting motivation recalibration mechanism, used in this case to dynamically and indeed thrustingly modify the extents of the production spaces made available to sub-managerial personnel. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From jwhit at janwhitaker.com Tue Aug 14 12:19:32 2007 From: jwhit at janwhitaker.com (Jan Whitaker) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 12:19:32 +1000 Subject: [LINK] facebook code leak and privacy concerns Message-ID: <61fg7n$4vscna@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/13/internet Facebook's code leak raises fears of fraud ? Bug blamed for security concerns on popular site ? Networkers in growing danger of identity theft * Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent * The Guardian * Monday August 13 2007 Experts are warning internet users to be more careful with their private information after secret code from the popular social-networking site Facebook was published on the internet. This is the first time that some of the site's secret operational code has been made public. Although it does not allow hackers to access private information directly, it could help criminals close in on personal data, according to one expert. Nik Cubrilovic, of Techcrunch.com, said: "This leak is not good news for Facebook, as it raises the question of how secure a user's private data really is. Facebook has become such a success and has such a high profile that it has become a magnet for attacks against its systems." [snip] Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From marghanita at ramin.com.au Tue Aug 14 12:34:00 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 12:34:00 +1000 Subject: [LINK] format for comments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46C11498.4010800@ramin.com.au> Janet Hawtin wrote: > Have been sent a format for comments from the standards org > Happy to forward it to others who might be interested in formatting > their comments > who might not have had the format message. > > Janet From memory, "the comment form" was a word document....has that changed? You could try returning the completed form compliant with ISO/IEC 26300:2006 and see if it makes any difference > The OpenDocument format (ODF, ISO/IEC 26300, full name: OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications) is a file format for electronic office documents, such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations, databases and word processing documents (e.g.: memos, reports, letters). Please do not forward a copy of the form to me. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From brendansweb at optusnet.com.au Tue Aug 14 12:42:45 2007 From: brendansweb at optusnet.com.au (Brendan Scott) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 12:42:45 +1000 Subject: [LINK] facebook code leak and privacy concerns In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4vscna@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <61fg7n$4vscna@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <46C116A5.6090509@optusnet.com.au> Jan Whitaker wrote: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/13/internet Facebook's > code leak raises fears of fraud Further down it says: > Neil Munroe, external affairs director at Equifax, said: "More and > more consumers are signing up to these sites every day and chances > are they'll put on their date of birth, location, email, job and > marital status. Fraudsters can use this information to steal an > individual's identity and open accounts in their name." This is something which confuses me. If someone is going to commit an identity theft fraud, why do they need to have an identity to steal? That is, why do they need a victim, why don't they just forge the whole kit and kaboodle? Brendan From cas at taz.net.au Tue Aug 14 15:04:43 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:04:43 +1000 Subject: [LINK] facebook code leak and privacy concerns In-Reply-To: <46C116A5.6090509@optusnet.com.au> References: <61fg7n$4vscna@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46C116A5.6090509@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070814050443.GP4898@taz.net.au> On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 12:42:45PM +1000, Brendan Scott wrote: > Jan Whitaker wrote: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/13/internet Facebook's > > code leak raises fears of fraud > > Further down it says: > > > Neil Munroe, external affairs director at Equifax, said: "More and > > more consumers are signing up to these sites every day and chances > > are they'll put on their date of birth, location, email, job and > > marital status. Fraudsters can use this information to steal an > > individual's identity and open accounts in their name." sounds like the pot calling the kettle black. credit reference agencies are one of the biggest sources of identity data being stolen. they're worried because the higher visibility of identity theft these days is making people much more aware about their personal information (which CR scumbags trade in) and much more careful about who they give their info to. of course, people are still willing to enter competitions (whose sole purpose is to gather personal data for marketing) and "flybuys" and similar programs (whose purpose is to bypass the anti-snooping laws for EFT transactions) - just give them a chance to buy incredibly useful must-have items like a silver-plated nose-hair clipper for 10,000 reward points. > > This is something which confuses me. If someone is going to commit an > identity theft fraud, why do they need to have an identity to steal? > That is, why do they need a victim, why don't they just forge the > whole kit and kaboodle? because an identity for a 20/30/40/whatever year old fraudster that has no record of existing before a few months ago isnt very convincing. it's much easier to get government ID (e.g. birth certificate, passport) for someone who actually exists than for a completely made up name. also because part of what is being stolen IS the credit history / reputation of the ID-theft victim. and in some cases, they steal/spend the victim's money, or use their existing credit cards etc. and because people are lazy. if someone checking an identity can see that the ID has a long transaction history, they'll assume that someone else has done all the necessary checking and do a much less thorough job themselves. craig -- craig sanders I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. -- Hunter S. Thompson From cas at taz.net.au Tue Aug 14 15:08:30 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:08:30 +1000 Subject: [LINK] website animations In-Reply-To: <46C0E3FF.4040605@pacific.net.au> References: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> <20070813223637.GA27185@malaria> <46C0E3FF.4040605@pacific.net.au> Message-ID: <20070814050830.GQ4898@taz.net.au> On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 09:06:39AM +1000, Eleanor Lister wrote: > > P.S: i'll be strangling some suits later .... wanna watch? how much are the tickets? craig -- craig sanders From grove at zeta.org.au Tue Aug 14 15:39:45 2007 From: grove at zeta.org.au (grove at zeta.org.au) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:39:45 +1000 (EST) Subject: [LINK] website animations In-Reply-To: <20070814050830.GQ4898@taz.net.au> References: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> <20070813223637.GA27185@malaria> <46C0E3FF.4040605@pacific.net.au> <20070814050830.GQ4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Aug 2007, Craig Sanders wrote: > On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 09:06:39AM +1000, Eleanor Lister wrote: >> >> P.S: i'll be strangling some suits later .... wanna watch? > > how much are the tickets? And is it done with their own ties? rachel -- Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia grove at zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html Will you tolerate this? Return Hew Raymond Griffiths now... "Who do you trust?" - John W Howard From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Tue Aug 14 15:34:02 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:34:02 +1000 Subject: [LINK] google prediction in 1964 Message-ID: <61fg7n$4vvkv6@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Since the prognostications of Tom have come up lately, check this out. >this is rather nifty ... Google as predicted in 1964 ... > >http://web-owls.com/2007/06/25/google-as-predicted-in-1964/ Amazing! Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From marghanita at ramin.com.au Tue Aug 14 15:45:21 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:45:21 +1000 Subject: [LINK] website animations In-Reply-To: <20070814050830.GQ4898@taz.net.au> References: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> <20070813223637.GA27185@malaria> <46C0E3FF.4040605@pacific.net.au> <20070814050830.GQ4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46C14171.6000906@ramin.com.au> Craig Sanders wrote: > On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 09:06:39AM +1000, Eleanor Lister wrote: >> P.S: i'll be strangling some suits later .... wanna watch? > > how much are the tickets? > it seems there may be a market for this kind of entertainment.... > FullCodePress - the "geek Olympics"! > > This weekend (18/19 August) the New Zealand web team, the "Code Blacks" > will take on the > Australian team > in a 24hr > challenge to build a website for a non-profit organisation. > > Each team has 7 members, covering the range of skills needed to build a > website. The teams won't know who they're building the site for until the > competition starts. They'll then face a caffeine-loaded 24 hours, at the > end of which two non-profit organisations will have a fully-functional > website. > > A judging panel will assess each site against a range of criteria, > including standards-compliance, accessibility, copy writing and design. > > Action will be live on the 18th and 19th via YouTube, flickr, twitter and > various blogs, with interviews, updates on progress and pictures of tired > and stressed team members!. Look for the tag "fullcodepress". > > Mike > > > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From jwhit at janwhitaker.com Tue Aug 14 15:50:43 2007 From: jwhit at janwhitaker.com (Jan Whitaker) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:50:43 +1000 Subject: [LINK] XO computer Message-ID: <61fg7n$4vvvdk@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> have a look at the $100 (well, $140 to manufacture we learn in the clip) laptop. I bought a $100 micromicro about 20 yrs ago that had 1kb of memory and not much else called a Sinclair. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfV7hZGyGlk&feature=dir Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From link at todd.inoz.com Tue Aug 14 17:49:47 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:49:47 +1000 Subject: [LINK] website animations In-Reply-To: <46C0E3FF.4040605@pacific.net.au> References: <20070813181734.7A7C217031@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <1A9A24B0-31B6-4615-828A-9D3D0C2C4471@itrundle.com> <20070813223637.GA27185@malaria> <46C0E3FF.4040605@pacific.net.au> Message-ID: <200708140806.l7E86NYh002868@ah.net> At 09:06 AM 14/08/2007, Eleanor Lister wrote: >i sure hope this carks it too ... i am getting very tired of setting up >sites for suits that have not the faintest clue what's happening or how >to use the site; so they demand ever flashier crap on the grounds that >they are tapping into a market dynamic, which naturally a mere geek like >me is too thick to cope with or understand. Oh just the tip of the ice berg :) >grrr > >regards, > EL before coffee 11 PM? Brekky? >P.S: i'll be strangling some suits later .... wanna watch? Front Row please! Can we throw confetti too! From georgebray at gmail.com Tue Aug 14 21:10:45 2007 From: georgebray at gmail.com (George Bray) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:10:45 +1000 Subject: [LINK] XO computer In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4vvvdk@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <61fg7n$4vvvdk@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <635bd2180708140410s7d4c56br5c040712eb2c72f5@mail.gmail.com> On 8/14/07, Jan Whitaker wrote: > I bought a $100 micromicro about 20 yrs ago that had > 1kb of memory and not much else called a Sinclair. The Sinclairs were great for learning early computing, though with the 16KB RAM expansion pack I had to keep a wet sponge on the heatsink to keep it going reliably. Those were the days. http://computermuseum.50megs.com/brands/zx80.htm George From gdt at gdt.id.au Tue Aug 14 22:16:22 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:46:22 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Flexible Architecture Research Center System In-Reply-To: <20070814000203.3A0341AAB@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> References: <20070814000203.3A0341AAB@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <1187093782.3264.53.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Less flippantly, one of the major advantages MIT physics staff once felt they had over other universities was that Building 20 was "temporary" so MIT Physical Property didn't care if a wall had to be "adjusted" by academic staff to install an experiment. So stuff could just be done, rather than become bound up in negotiations with the administration. From stephen at melbpc.org.au Tue Aug 14 23:17:07 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:17:07 GMT Subject: [LINK] Google News 'Right of Reply' Message-ID: <20070814131707.8450017027@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Hi there, Google news is to give a 'right of reply' to news-makers: -- 'Perspectives About The News From People In The News' The Official Blog from the Team at Google News. Tuesday, August 7, 2007 By Dan Meredith and Andy Golding, Software Engineers, Google News Team We wanted to give you a heads-up on a new, experimental feature we'll be trying out on the Google News home page. Starting this week, we'll be displaying reader comments on stories in Google News, but with a bit of a twist... We'll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report. As always, Google News will direct readers to the professionally-written articles and news sources our algorithms have determined are relevant for a topic. From bloggers to mainstream journalists, the journalists who help create the news we read every day occupy a critical place in the information age. But we're hoping that by adding this feature, we can help enhance the news experience for readers, testing the hypothesis that -- whether they're penguin researchers or presidential candidates-- a personal view can sometimes add a whole new dimension to the story. We're beginning this only in the US and then, based on how things go, we'll work to expand it to other languages and editions. We're excited about the possibilities of this new feature and we hope you are too, so if you've been covered in a news article please send us your comments and we'll work with you to post it on Google News. -- Cheers, people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From link at todd.inoz.com Wed Aug 15 00:21:27 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:21:27 +1000 Subject: [LINK] XO computer In-Reply-To: <635bd2180708140410s7d4c56br5c040712eb2c72f5@mail.gmail.com > References: <61fg7n$4vvvdk@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <635bd2180708140410s7d4c56br5c040712eb2c72f5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200708141423.l7EENTGx018250@ah.net> At 09:10 PM 14/08/2007, George Bray wrote: >On 8/14/07, Jan Whitaker wrote: > > I bought a $100 micromicro about 20 yrs ago that had > > 1kb of memory and not much else called a Sinclair. > >The Sinclairs were great for learning early computing, though with the >16KB RAM expansion pack I had to keep a wet sponge on the heatsink to >keep it going reliably. Those were the days. I have two Sinclairs in my garage :) Top little machine :) Really needed to open it up and add some interconnectivity to really do exciting things, but hey - who'd complain! From stephen at melbpc.org.au Wed Aug 15 01:56:01 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:56:01 GMT Subject: [LINK] Online trading .. ASX Seminars Message-ID: <20070814155601.56F891704F@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Hi all A while ago I wrote about a new form of financial market, and that's online CFD trading. It's not your normal share market .. it's instant. Normal share trading is a weekly/monthly activity .. whilst trading in the entirely online Australian CFD market is a second/minute buy/sell process. It's absolutely ideal for the Web2 world .. and, is growing exponentially. Also now that the new ASX CFD site will not be 'propriety' and will allow clients to choose whom they trade ASX CFDs with .. I believe CFD trading will eventually eclipse the longer-term traditional share-market process, simply because instant data/communications and CFDs are such a good match. Home > Exercising leverage - ASX CFDs Exercising leverage Strong market returns in the last few years have resulted in increased trader confidence and have sparked heightened interest in the use of leveraged instruments. Contracts for Difference (CFDs) in particular, with their ease of use and high liquidity, have experienced rapid growth in popularity amongst Australian traders. The boom in CFDs has served to further heighten awareness of the use of leverage generally to maximise trading returns. Traders and investors with knowledge and discipline are recognising the potential of leveraged products. Knowing when and how to use them is an important part of any trading business. Good money management is very important when you are trading with leverage, because you are exposing yourself to greater gains - and losses - than in other forms of trading. This article provides a glimpse into the features of the soon to be released exchange-traded ASX CFDs. ASX CFDs In September 2007, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) will be launching exchange traded CFDs on SYCOM - the trading platform of its subsidiary, the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE). They will be known as ASX CFDs. The initial product suite will include CFDs on the Top 50 ASX stocks, six major global equity indices, eight of the major foreign exchange (FX) crosses, and CFDs on gold and oil. Liquidity and price spreads are to be provided by up to ten designated market makers approved by the ASX. Brokers who intend to offer ASX CFDs to their clients will be accredited and monitored by the ASX. Phase 1 ASX CFD products Equities Indexes FX Commodities Top 50 ASX Listed Equities S&P/ASX 200 AUD/USD Oil DJIA AUD/NZD Gold NASDAQ AUD/EUR FTSE AUD/JPY DAX? USD/JPY Dow Jones EURO STOXX? EUR/USD NZD/USD NZD/JPY Choice The ASX is providing the marketplace for trading ASX CFDs, and brokers will be able to provide and implement trading platforms and a variety of services for their clients. This will allow clients to choose whom they trade ASX CFDs with. Clients of existing stockbroking firms who have hesitated to trade CFDs through another specialist provider may now be able to trade ASX CFDs through their current stockbroker. Transparency and consistency As a range of brokers will offer ASX CFDs, fees and charges will be clearly displayed and publicly available. ASX CFDs will provide consistent product design across the various asset classes - clients will be able to trade a standardised contract regardless of the broker they choose to trade with... Index and commodity trading CFD traders will be able to trade the indices, FX crosses and commodities listed in table 1. Traders will also be able to access and trade these instruments through their existing brokers, based in Australia, from one account. Further developments ASX will provide a series of educational seminars for traders and investors prior to the release of ASX CFDs. There will also be ongoing trader education programs and tools to help improve market understanding amongst potential and existing CFD traders. There will also be ongoing broker education and training, helping to maintain high standards amongst the ASX CFD accredited brokers. The range of CFDs offered by ASX is also expected to increase as the market develops. Trade well. About the author Kel Butcher is a full-time futures, equities and CFD trader. He also acts as a mentor and coach to other traders. He can be contacted by email at kel at tradingwisdom.com.au. This article is an edited extract from 'Exercising Leverage' - originally published in the Jul/Aug 07 issue of YourTradingEdge magazine www.yte.com.au. All rights reserved. ? Copyright 2007, MarketSource International Pty Ltd. Free Seminar series - An introduction to ASX CFDs Over the last few weeks ASX has conducted FREE seminars in Adelaide, Perth and Sydney for traders and investors keen to know more about the ASX product range. The seminars have also given traders and investors the opportunity to meet some of the brokers and advisers who will be offering ASX CFDs. Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney seminars will be conducted over the next few weeks. The level of response to the seminars has been so strong in each of the cities that ASX has scheduled several additional seminars. Sydney: August 16, 17, 18 Brisbane: August 21 (3 sessions) Melbourne: September 4 (3 sessions) Sydney: September 11, 13 and 15. ASX is now accepting registrations on its website for these free seminars. Registration is essential and seminars have been booking out fast. You are encouraged to register soon to ensure your place. -- Cheers all .. Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Wed Aug 15 08:59:05 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 08:59:05 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Flexible Architecture Research Center System[SEC=UNOFFICIAL] In-Reply-To: <8DA55692F752634C955C1DDAF682629801C1B35F@acexp007.portfolio.base> Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133763@cal066.act.gov.au> The Link Instutute today announced that, due to copyright considerations, it had renamed its Flexible Acrhitecture Research Centre System (FARCS) to Flexible Architecture Research - Qualification 2. "The new name is both more descriptive of the maturity of the design and a solution to the copyright issue that we've been grappling with," said Link Institute head, Professor Klerphell. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Tue Aug 14 17:52:44 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:52:44 +1000 Subject: [LINK] format for comments In-Reply-To: <46C11498.4010800@ramin.com.au> References: <46C11498.4010800@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: <20070814230218.4FC8120641@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 12:34 PM 14/08/2007, Marghanita da Cruz wrote: >... From memory, "the comment form" was a word document....has that changed? The comment template for the proposed ISO/IEC 29500 Office Open XML standard was distributed by Standards Australia as a 34 kbyte Microsoft RTF file. If converted to the ISO ODF format, it reduces to 11 kbytes. The draft standard itself is available from the Standards Australia web site, but be warned it is a 46 Mbyte Zip file: . The text of the standard is 5,220 pages of PDF; about seven times the size of the ODF standard. If ISO change in proportion, an official copy of the OOXML standard will cost $US2,000. ;-) I couldn't find Standards Australia's request for comment on the SA web site, so have blogged it, with the text of the comment form, at: . 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 From robinstephens at gmail.com Wed Aug 15 10:19:52 2007 From: robinstephens at gmail.com (Robin Stephens) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:19:52 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Online trading .. ASX Seminars In-Reply-To: <20070814155601.56F891704F@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070814155601.56F891704F@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <8056c7e90708141719r4f4c7931q8cdea02bfe264a99@mail.gmail.com> On 15/08/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > A while ago I wrote about a new form of financial market, and that's > online CFD trading. It's not your normal share market .. it's instant. Sounds perfect for pump and dump. Expect more spam. Robin From gdt at gdt.id.au Wed Aug 15 10:12:01 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:42:01 +0930 Subject: [LINK] format for comments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1187136721.3517.9.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 10:48 +0930, Janet Hawtin wrote: > Have been sent a format for comments from the standards org > Happy to forward it to others who might be interested in formatting > their comments > who might not have had the format message. I do wish this group of jokers would get their act together. After the Forum, Standards Australia requested comments be submitted ASAP. Now, with a substantial amount of work done, they come out with a form that should have been available at the beginning of the process. And not even in a ISO format. I do understand that Standards Australia are not often in the front line of international standards development like IETF and IEEE 802.3, and I don't expect the same level of hardened experience. But expecting some level of organisation isn't unreasonable. From eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au Wed Aug 15 12:49:29 2007 From: eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au (Eric Scheid) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:49:29 +1000 Subject: [LINK] web information architecture - what are the issues you see? Message-ID: I'm knee deep in organising a conference for web information architecture (shameless plug below ;-) and am interested in hearing from people outside my immediate industry circle of contacts as to what you think are some of the big issues we should be thinking about. Sure, there are lots of issues with web design practice in general. Lots of people don't like all the flashy graphics and stuff. What I'm really hoping for, by asking the Link Institute constituency, are insights that go deeper than just the surface presentation issues, that ask difficult questions about the very structure of how we organise all the many pages of a website. Historically, we've been primarily concerned with making information on a given website easy to find, aligning the structure, navigation, and content labels with the expectations and cognitive models of the primary and secondary audiences. But then there is all this blather about "Web 2.0" being social environments, about designing for the group rather than the individual, about making the content we put out there amenable to repurposing in mashups and such ... and so for the sake of the now, lets say I'm defining 'web information architecture' as the practice of "structuring information for purpose" ... what might some of those other "purposes" be? Well ... what are your thoughts? e. The shameless plug: Oz-IA/2007 A Conference for Information Architecture Sydney, September 22nd/23rd, 2007 Come hear leaders from the IA industry share their insights, come to network with your peers of practice. It's on the weekend immediately prior to the Web Directions conference and expo, so why not come and totally geek out? http://www.oz-ia.org/2007 From mail at ozzmosis.com Wed Aug 15 13:22:41 2007 From: mail at ozzmosis.com (andrew clarke) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:22:41 +1000 Subject: [LINK] web information architecture - what are the issues you see? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070815032241.GA47572@ozzmosis.com> On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 12:49:29PM +1000, Eric Scheid wrote: > Sure, there are lots of issues with web design practice in general. Lots of > people don't like all the flashy graphics and stuff. What I'm really hoping > for, by asking the Link Institute constituency, are insights that go deeper > than just the surface presentation issues, that ask difficult questions > about the very structure of how we organise all the many pages of a website. If done properly, web sites that support RSS (or Atom) aggregation are extremely beneficial in allowing frequent users of a site to access new information quickly within their aggregator software (or a web aggregator like Google Reader or Bloglines), without necessarily having to actually visit that site. It can also eliminate some of the presentation and organisational issues of web sites, giving the user more control in how they navigate those sites. I'd especially like to see more Australian government sites support RSS. For example, http://www.dpc.vic.gov.au/4A256811001D78BF/WebWhatsNew?OpenView is just asking for an RSS feed. Regards Andrew From cas at taz.net.au Wed Aug 15 13:30:36 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:30:36 +1000 Subject: [LINK] New technology delivers secret vote to blind In-Reply-To: <46C26C32.1010209@lannet.com.au> References: <46C26C32.1010209@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070815033035.GR4898@taz.net.au> On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 01:00:02PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > > When does someone get to cast the technical measure over this technology? > > > http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/15/2005708.htm?section=justin > > New technology has been unveiled which will allow blind and vision-impaired > people to cast a secret vote at the next federal election for the first > time. > > The Australian-designed equipment will be installed in 29 locations around > the country and thousands of voters are expected to use it. > > The Australian Electoral Commission's Judy Birkenhead says there was high > demand for a way to cast an independent vote. > > "It works by replacing the ballot paper with a computer screen and the > people can put their preferences into that ballot paper using a > telephone-style keypad, then an encoded ballot paper prints [that] out, and > that's what goes into the ballot box," she said. i really hope that: a) it braille-prints the voter's ballot on the paper as well as a inkjet/laser printout b) all such printed ballots are subject to extra scrutiny to ensure that the printed vote matches the braille vote. c) in case of any discrepancy, the braille printout is regarded as authoritative. otherwise there is NO way for a blind voter to verify that the printed ballot paper matches their intention. i also hope that this technology is restricted to special-purpose voting like this and isn't the thin end of the wedge in getting easily-subverted voting machines into general use in australia. there's just no compelling advantage/reason to be using them and enormous risk. craig -- craig sanders From link at todd.inoz.com Wed Aug 15 14:51:24 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:51:24 +1000 Subject: [LINK] New technology delivers secret vote to blind In-Reply-To: <46C26C32.1010209@lannet.com.au> References: <46C26C32.1010209@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <200708150452.l7F4q1aU005807@ah.net> What the Federal Government finally worked out that Braille can be presented electronically, or even simpler, on paper? At 01:00 PM 15/08/2007, Howard Lowndes wrote: > >When does someone get to cast the technical measure over this technology? > > >http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/15/2005708.htm?section=justin > >New technology has been unveiled which will allow blind and >vision-impaired people to cast a secret vote at the next federal >election for the first time. > >The Australian-designed equipment will be installed in 29 locations >around the country and thousands of voters are expected to use it. > >The Australian Electoral Commission's Judy Birkenhead says there was >high demand for a way to cast an independent vote. > >"It works by replacing the ballot paper with a computer screen and >the people can put their preferences into that ballot paper using a >telephone-style keypad, then an encoded ballot paper prints [that] >out, and that's what goes into the ballot box," she said. > >-- >Howard. >LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people >When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; >When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. >-- >Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. > >_______________________________________________ >Link mailing list >Link at mailman.anu.edu.au >http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Wed Aug 15 15:36:28 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:36:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] google prediction in 1964 In-Reply-To: <61fg7n$4vvkv6@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133782@cal066.act.gov.au> Jan said: > Since the prognostications of Tom have come up lately, check this out. > > >this is rather nifty ... Google as predicted in 1964 ... > > > >http://web-owls.com/2007/06/25/google-as-predicted-in-1964/ > > Amazing! 0_0 Absolutely astonishing. Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au Wed Aug 15 12:12:53 2007 From: pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au (Paul Brooks) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:12:53 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <20070810015829.GK4898@taz.net.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> <46BA5690.1020602@ramin.com.au> <46BA6C8E.5000300@lannet.com.au> <20070810015829.GK4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46C26125.5030203@layer10.com.au> Picking up on an older thread.. Craig Sanders wrote: > wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no sport at all on FTA, not even > the 10-15 minutes that it wastes on the news each night? no football of > any kind, no tennis, no cricket, no interviews with not-quite-retarded > thugs whose claim to fame is that they can kick a ball or ride a bike or > swim etc, no commonwealth games, and bliss! no olympics. > No. I enjoy watching some sport, especially if I can't travel to the place the match is being played. I enjoy getting out with my family, and watching my children get exercise and coordination through sport - and role-models seen on television as well as in live events help get children away from their gameboys and out in the fresh air. I expect that enthusiasm for sport, fostered by seeing it on TV, encourages people of all ages out to participate and become a bit healthier and engage in soical interaction, in a way that no amount of gym memberships and pounding the pavements in solitary jogging can achieve. I find it a bit rich to, on the one hand, advocate expanding the amount of differentiated programming on an expanded number of channels to cater for niche interests, and then turn around and advocate removing an entire genre that the majority of the population (possibly not represented proportionately on this list) enjoys watching. fast-forward, change channels, skip it with your PVR and exercise your personal right to choose not to watch if you wish, at the point of consumption and reception - but don't try to impose your personal preferences on the source - the transmission - and seek to restrict the ability of the rest of us to choose to watch if we wish. Go the Swans. Paul. From pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au Wed Aug 15 12:12:43 2007 From: pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au (Paul Brooks) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:12:43 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Link Nomination In-Reply-To: References: <20070808053611.CBB8516FEE@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <46B96891.8080608@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46C2611B.8080704@layer10.com.au> Roger Clarke wrote: >> stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >> Hi all, >> Link Nomination: "Most Money Spent on an Aussie Web Ad" >> > > Howard Lowndes : >> What a crock of sh!t. It made Firefox totally unstable and gave a >> new meaning to Flash, and nearly caused me to lose 16 open tabs that >> I had been working with. > > Good heavens - it worked fine in Safari 2.0.4 (419.3), albeit with a > couple of pauses that even 1Mbps ADSL didn't seem to cope with. > > I even thought it was quite well done, so maybe my usual scepticism > went missing this afternoon. > Worked fine in my Firefox, but it could have done with some testing and proofing. With all that it must have cost, there was still a glaring error - the labels on the brushes and pencils were swapped over. From marghanita at ramin.com.au Wed Aug 15 17:07:43 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:07:43 +1000 Subject: [LINK] web information architecture - what are the issues you see? In-Reply-To: <20070815032241.GA47572@ozzmosis.com> References: <20070815032241.GA47572@ozzmosis.com> Message-ID: <46C2A63F.9080108@ramin.com.au> andrew clarke wrote: > On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 12:49:29PM +1000, Eric Scheid wrote: > >> Sure, there are lots of issues with web design practice in general. Lots of >> people don't like all the flashy graphics and stuff. What I'm really hoping >> for, by asking the Link Institute constituency, are insights that go deeper >> than just the surface presentation issues, that ask difficult questions >> about the very structure of how we organise all the many pages of a website. > > If done properly, web sites that support RSS (or Atom) aggregation are > extremely beneficial in allowing frequent users of a site to access new > information quickly within their aggregator software (or a web > aggregator like Google Reader or Bloglines), without necessarily having > to actually visit that site. > > It can also eliminate some of the presentation and organisational issues > of web sites, giving the user more control in how they navigate those > sites. It certainly allows for another dimension on and across websites eg I spent hours fiddling around trying to do a style sheet for the XML only to discover that browsers (or at least iceweazel 2.0.1) and email clients (or at least icedove version 1.5.0.9) now recognise the format. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Wed Aug 15 17:13:35 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:13:35 +1000 Subject: [LINK] unused US television airwaves would be available for other services Message-ID: <46C2A79F.2070900@ramin.com.au> Correspondents in Washington | August 14, 2007 MICROSOFT has told the US Federal Communications Commission it is confident that vacant television airwaves can be used for wireless services without interfering with broadcast signals. The unused US television airwaves would be available for other services by early 2009, when broadcasters are due to switch from analogue to digital signals. In a document filed with the FCC, Microsoft disputed the agency's recent finding that prototype internet devices caused static on existing broadcasts. -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Wed Aug 15 18:15:23 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:15:23 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Electronic voting demonstration report Message-ID: <672uje$50nf86@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> This is from someone in the vision impaired community commenting on their experience with the voting machine. Posted today. >I took my first look at the electronic voting machines today. >The machine is a normal computer screen and a telephone type keypad, the >audio was very clear and if I'm not mistaken, it was recorded my the vision >Australia library. > >The one thing the Australian electral comition official advised, is that >you listen to the instructions before making your selection. >They will also have the statuary declaration in vrail and large print. [he means braille of course] Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From mail at ozzmosis.com Wed Aug 15 23:23:27 2007 From: mail at ozzmosis.com (andrew clarke) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:23:27 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Wi-Fi hotspot .. access accounts via VPN or SSL In-Reply-To: <20070802105457.GA51383@ozzmosis.com> References: <20070801183321.DD3311640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <20070802105457.GA51383@ozzmosis.com> Message-ID: <20070815132327.GA51760@ozzmosis.com> On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 08:54:57PM +1000, andrew clarke wrote: > I'm not sure about Facebook or the rest of Google, but Google Mail > accounts can be used over an encrypted link using HTTPS. > > https://www.gmail.com/ > > Google also provide an encrypted POP3 service for Gmail users. Just a quick update to say that Google Reader also supports secure HTTP: https://www.google.com/reader/ In theory this should mean that nobody (except Google) can intercept your session and find out what articles you are reading. Unless they can see over your shoulder! It looks like Facebook doesn't support secure HTTP, at least for now. Also, in the mail quoted above I didn't mean to imply that Facebook was operated by Google. Regards Andrew From stephen at melbpc.org.au Thu Aug 16 01:23:43 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:23:43 GMT Subject: [LINK] Flexible Architecture Research Center System Message-ID: <20070815152343.521751705F@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> At 08:59 AM 15/08/2007, Fred writes: > The Link Instutute announced it had renamed its Flexible Acrhitecture > Research Centre System (FARCS) to Flexible Architecture Research > Qualification 2 "The new name is both more descriptive of the maturity > of the design and a solution to the copyright issue that we have been > grappling with," said Link Institute head, Professor Klerphell. In a follow-up announcement Professor Klerphell noted that the Institute will release a Millennium Edition of FARCS & FARQ2, called FARCS ME. As well as apportioning academic staff room-space according to value to the institute the Millennium Edition will also factor travel & catering. For example, travel arrangements will vary between the issue of a pair of thongs, to a bicycle-rack space behind the maintenance sheds, to a free campus bus ticket to a limo-size reserved parking spot next to the faculty main-entrances. The catering research incentives will also vary between a coin-on-a-string for the food vending machines, to tim-tams in the common room, to reserved seating and silver-service for Deans. Munching on a tim tam while thrusting bicycle clips pocket-wise after a sprint to avoid various South American gentlemen, Professor Klerphell said the new research incentives will out-do the hills hoist and victas in terms of local inventions. The Professor was later seen wearing thongs while tidying out his broom closet after today's FARCS ME adjustments. Cheers, people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From drose at nla.gov.au Thu Aug 16 09:31:37 2007 From: drose at nla.gov.au (Daniel Rose) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:31:37 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Identity theft [was facebook....] In-Reply-To: <46C116A5.6090509@optusnet.com.au> References: <61fg7n$4vscna@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46C116A5.6090509@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <46C38CD9.3050405@nla.gov.au> Brendan Scott wrote: > Jan Whitaker wrote: >> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/13/internet Facebook's >> code leak raises fears of fraud > > Further down it says: > >> Neil Munroe, external affairs director at Equifax, said: "More and >> more consumers are signing up to these sites every day and chances >> are they'll put on their date of birth, location, email, job and >> marital status. Fraudsters can use this information to steal an >> individual's identity and open accounts in their name." > > This is something which confuses me. If someone is going to commit an identity theft fraud, why do they need to have an identity to steal? That is, why do they need a victim, why don't they just forge the whole kit and kaboodle? > For the face to face stuff, you can't get a birth certificate for someone who doesn't exist, you have to forge one. This goes right back to Frederick Forsyth's novel 'The day of the jackal'. My understanding is that almost always, the reason scammers want someone else's details is not so much to commit crime in general, but to borrow money in their name. It's more flexible and reliable than draining their bank account, which is more easily traced and you don't know how much is in there. If the name has no history, there's no credit record and not much chance of a gold American Express card. It's much easier to use a real person, you 'leverage' off of the existing databases the institutions hold. The banks won't led to people who don't exist. Once you can get official ID with your face on a card with their details, you can get credit cards, GE money loans, interest free deals and so on, but that's small stuff. On the 'net, you're not face to face. I suspect that some of this mortgage collapse in the USA is due to online mortgages taken out by scammers on other people's homes; that's hundreds of thousands. I can open a bank account over the net with faxed documents with no JP witness, and faxes can be much more easily forged than the real thing. I wouldn't be surprised if I can get credit this way also. The hardest part, as I see it, is laundering the money without leaving a computer trail, and that's why all these spam emails offer you jobs 'processing financial transactions' for up to a grand a week. Overall, if constant debt were an unusual state of affairs then a stolen identity would be much less useful. You'd have to see the bank manager in person and plead your case. In the USA there are amazing things possible with a SSN and no ID. Here we have a 100 points rule and so on. Even still, my wife got approved for $8,000 based on only centrelink income and a driver's licence. She only applied for $1,500! From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Wed Aug 15 14:49:44 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:49:44 +1000 Subject: [LINK] web information architecture - what are the issues you see? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070815234120.D5D951C151@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 12:49 PM 15/08/2007, Eric Scheid wrote: >I'm knee deep in organising a conference for web information architecture ... Looks good. >... ask difficult questions about the very structure of how we >organise all the many pages of a website ... blather about "Web 2.0" ... Some questions: * Web 2.0 provides for interactive applications which are not really web pages. So should web design be simply subsumed into the traditional computer application design discipline? * Do social network models developed for personal use really suit the workplace and civil society applications? How will they deal with conflict in decision making? * As the web gets used to run just about everything in our society, should it be redesigned to be a "safety critical" system? As an example I propose we provide government, education and housing, in a "box" for remote indigenous communities . With a modest expansion and integration of the online services already available, most of the government, education services and day to day community communication needs could be provided by a web based service. 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 From drose at nla.gov.au Thu Aug 16 09:42:42 2007 From: drose at nla.gov.au (Daniel Rose) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:42:42 +1000 Subject: [LINK] New technology delivers secret vote to blind In-Reply-To: <20070815033035.GR4898@taz.net.au> References: <46C26C32.1010209@lannet.com.au> <20070815033035.GR4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46C38F72.4020602@nla.gov.au> Craig Sanders wrote: > On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 01:00:02PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: >> >> When does someone get to cast the technical measure over this technology? >> >> >> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/15/2005708.htm?section=justin >> >> New technology has been unveiled which will allow blind and vision-impaired >> people to cast a secret vote at the next federal election for the first >> time. >> >> The Australian-designed equipment will be installed in 29 locations around >> the country and thousands of voters are expected to use it. >> >> The Australian Electoral Commission's Judy Birkenhead says there was high >> demand for a way to cast an independent vote. >> >> "It works by replacing the ballot paper with a computer screen and the >> people can put their preferences into that ballot paper using a >> telephone-style keypad, then an encoded ballot paper prints [that] out, and >> that's what goes into the ballot box," she said. > > i really hope that: > > a) it braille-prints the voter's ballot on the paper as well as a inkjet/laser > printout > > b) all such printed ballots are subject to extra scrutiny to ensure that the > printed vote matches the braille vote. > > c) in case of any discrepancy, the braille printout is regarded as > authoritative. > > > otherwise there is NO way for a blind voter to verify that the printed > ballot paper matches their intention. > > > > > > i also hope that this technology is restricted to special-purpose voting like > this and isn't the thin end of the wedge in getting easily-subverted voting > machines into general use in australia. there's just no compelling > advantage/reason to be using them and enormous risk. Well I reckon it is a first step, absolutely. This was discussed on local radio not so long ago. It seems to me that this could be replaced with either a bucket load of braille-printed ballots, which are completed with a pencil like normal ones, or with a printer which prints braille ballots as required. The predicted argument is "What about the blind people who can't read braille?", which is of course more than a little silly, but that won't stop it being made and any audience thinking "Good point!". -- Daniel Rose National Library of Australia From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Thu Aug 16 10:14:35 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:14:35 +1000 Subject: [LINK] New technology delivers secret vote to blind In-Reply-To: <46C38F72.4020602@nla.gov.au> References: <46C26C32.1010209@lannet.com.au> <20070815033035.GR4898@taz.net.au> <46C38F72.4020602@nla.gov.au> Message-ID: <672uje$51g92s@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 09:42 AM 16/08/2007, Daniel Rose wrote: >The predicted argument is "What about the blind people who can't >read braille?", which is of course more than a little silly, but >that won't stop it being made and any audience thinking "Good point!". Not sure why it's silly. Many blind people don't read Braille (as in Louis Braille). People who lose their sight later in life often don't. They compensate with audio. As the population ages, this will increase. Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From lucychili at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 11:05:38 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:35:38 +0930 Subject: [LINK] web information architecture - what are the issues you see? In-Reply-To: <20070815234120.D5D951C151@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> References: <20070815234120.D5D951C151@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: On 8/15/07, Tom Worthington wrote: > As an example I propose we provide government, education and housing, > in a "box" for remote indigenous communities > . > With a modest expansion and integration of the online services > already available, most of the government, education services and day > to day community communication needs could be provided by a web based service. I think it is great that there is attention being paid to Aboriginal communities and their needs. I do not know enough about Tom's proposal to be able to comment on that directly. Yes government does need to look at what the intersection between traditional approaches to services and software are and what might be important in a situation where people are becoming more reliant on access to infrastructure through software. Especially in disadvantaged communities with variable incomes and no access to local alternative sources and people. If this is pay to play access to a subscription to software then that has some social implications. If it means there are less face to face services available then that also has implications. I think particularly in remote communities we do need to be looking at the implications of infrastructure and service choices from the local end of the process. What do those choices mean for local people in terms of skills, access, leadership, control, voice, local value, privacy and rights to participation and access to services etc. I feel we deliver many ideas from a very vendor centric perspective and need to be a bit more interested in starting from a conversation or engagement in ideas around what makes value in communities and what makes value elsewhere. Not that one or other should 'win' but that especially in provision of essential access to social infrastructure there should be some fundamental considerations which would at least match the consideration we give to public information in other communities, and probably should be more thorough given the impact of remoteness, literacy, poverty, language.. Questions about legally safe/technically reliable interoperability of data formats are also likely to be more important as these technologies become more embedded in our access to society. Janet From lucychili at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 11:17:20 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:47:20 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Identity theft [was facebook....] In-Reply-To: <46C38CD9.3050405@nla.gov.au> References: <61fg7n$4vscna@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46C116A5.6090509@optusnet.com.au> <46C38CD9.3050405@nla.gov.au> Message-ID: Mark Pesce takes an interesting perspective on our identity transparency in a networked world. He starts talking about how we network and share, and continues into some life and times experiences of the implications of those networks. http://media.educationau.edu.au/db-MarkP-Melbourne.mp3 That directory contains the rest of the conversations around danah boyd's trip. http://media.educationau.edu.au danah is great and Jennifer Wilson also made a great presentation http://media.educationau.edu.au/dboyd-JenniferWilson.mp3 From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Thu Aug 16 12:30:28 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:30:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] SMH: 'Wicked pedia: Vatican, CIA edit online entries' Message-ID: Wicked pedia: Vatican, CIA edit online entries The Sydney Morning Herald Date: August 16 2007 Bobbie Johnson in London http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2007/08/15/1186857594702.html EDITING your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province of celebrities keen for some good PR. But a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that have been editing the site in order to improve their public image. The Wikipedia Scanner, which trawls the backwaters of the popular online encyclopedia, has unearthed a catalogue of organisations massaging entries, including the US Central Intelligence Agency and the British Labour Party. Workers operating on CIA computers have been spotted editing entries including the biographies of the former presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, while unnamed individuals inside the Vatican have worked on entries about Catholic saints - and the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. And somebody from a computer traced to Democrat headquarters edited a page on the conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh, calling him "idiotic", "ridiculous" and labelling his 20 million listeners as "legally retarded". The Scanner says Diebold, a supplier of voting machines, has made huge alterations to entries about its involvement in the controversial "hanging chad" election in the US in 2000. The company was criticised in the wake of the disputed results, but edits made by its employees on Wikipedia have included the removal of 15 paragraphs detailing the allegations. "In August 2003 Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for George Bush," the deleted text read. "When assailed by critics for the conflict of interest ? he vowed to lower his political profile." Last year some US congressional staff were found to be removing information from the profiles of the politicians they worked for and this year the computer group Microsoft back-pedalled after it was revealed to have offered money to experts to "correct" entries about it. The Scanner, built by Virgil Griffith, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, compares 5.3 million edits on the encyclopedia against the internet addresses of more than 2 million companies or individuals. Guardian News & Media -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From wavey_one at yahoo.com Thu Aug 16 14:06:49 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:06:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer Message-ID: <156638.91636.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Totally agree Paul. Craig's point, maybe somewhat in jest, of course is censorship! There was an interesting comment article in The Guardian recently that was about the digital conversion there. There, as here, people are slower in the uptake of digital set top boxes and TVs than desired. The author says, in short, when it comes to the crunch, people will just go and get their STB boxes. Until they need to, many just won't bother. "Chaos theory The papers are full of doom-laden predictions about the switchover to digital TV, just as they once were over decimalisation, and chip and pin technology. But will it really be a disaster? If the history of big British changes teaches us anything, says Oliver Burkeman it's that we're remarkably adaptable when push comes to shove" http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2148805,00.html Maybe the same thing will happen here. There's an another Guardian article saying half of all households are ready for the switchover - see http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2148610,00.html There was also as part of this debate talk of the el cheapo set top boxes. Surely these are mostly environmental disasters. Cheaply put together, probably much in the same was cheap clothes are put together ie in almost slave-like conditions, that will break down in less time than a more expensive version, on average. Thus adding to the crap in rubbish dumps. David ----- Original Message ---- From: Paul Brooks To: Craig Sanders Cc: Link Mailing List Sent: Wednesday, 15 August, 2007 12:12:53 PM Subject: Re: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer Picking up on an older thread.. Craig Sanders wrote: > wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no sport at all on FTA, not even > the 10-15 minutes that it wastes on the news each night? no football of > any kind, no tennis, no cricket, no interviews with not-quite-retarded > thugs whose claim to fame is that they can kick a ball or ride a bike or > swim etc, no commonwealth games, and bliss! no olympics. > No. I enjoy watching some sport, especially if I can't travel to the place the match is being played. I enjoy getting out with my family, and watching my children get exercise and coordination through sport - and role-models seen on television as well as in live events help get children away from their gameboys and out in the fresh air. I expect that enthusiasm for sport, fostered by seeing it on TV, encourages people of all ages out to participate and become a bit healthier and engage in soical interaction, in a way that no amount of gym memberships and pounding the pavements in solitary jogging can achieve. I find it a bit rich to, on the one hand, advocate expanding the amount of differentiated programming on an expanded number of channels to cater for niche interests, and then turn around and advocate removing an entire genre that the majority of the population (possibly not represented proportionately on this list) enjoys watching. fast-forward, change channels, skip it with your PVR and exercise your personal right to choose not to watch if you wish, at the point of consumption and reception - but don't try to impose your personal preferences on the source - the transmission - and seek to restrict the ability of the rest of us to choose to watch if we wish. Go the Swans. Paul. _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link at mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sick of deleting your inbox? Yahoo!7 Mail has free unlimited storage. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From drose at nla.gov.au Thu Aug 16 14:13:38 2007 From: drose at nla.gov.au (Daniel Rose) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:13:38 +1000 Subject: [LINK] New technology delivers secret vote to blind In-Reply-To: <672uje$51g92s@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <46C26C32.1010209@lannet.com.au> <20070815033035.GR4898@taz.net.au> <46C38F72.4020602@nla.gov.au> <672uje$51g92s@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <46C3CEF2.7050209@nla.gov.au> Jan Whitaker wrote: > At 09:42 AM 16/08/2007, Daniel Rose wrote: >> The predicted argument is "What about the blind people who can't read >> braille?", which is of course more than a little silly, but that won't >> stop it being made and any audience thinking "Good point!". > > Not sure why it's silly. Many blind people don't read Braille (as in > Louis Braille). People who lose their sight later in life often don't. > They compensate with audio. As the population ages, this will increase. > It's silly because nobody says "What about the people who can't read English?" and there are more of them than there are of the brailless blind. It's also silly because they can learn; the argument at the moment is that the blind are (allegedly) denied the right to a secret ballot. Braille gives them that right, and although I can't read braille, it seems to be within the capabilities of most people to learn. In other words, braille is a solution to the stated problem. However, I think that the unstated problem is really "There exists no way for private firms to establish a revenue stream from the voting process". Lastly, I still haven't had it explained to me why the blind voter should trust their nominated friend or relative less than they should trust the people involved with designing and building the voting machines, so, as was pointed out earlier, you'd still need to put a brailled ballot in the box for the system to be trustable; in which case you don't need the computer to do the voting on, you can just use a pencil. From stephen at melbpc.org.au Thu Aug 16 16:08:41 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:08:41 GMT Subject: [LINK] security breach disclosure laws Message-ID: <20070816060841.39B1C17070@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Democrats introduce data security breach bill to parliament Call for action ahead of ALRC discussion paper next month Sandra Rossi 16/08/2007 11:24:52 South Australian Democrats Senator, Natasha Stott Despoja, today introduced a private Bill to parliament seeking the introduction of laws which force businesses to notify consumers of a data security breach involving their personal information. Labelling existing privacy laws as deficient, Senator Stott Despoja introduced the Bill seeking immediate amendments to the Privacy Act. Even if the Bill is rejected and doesn't gain the numbers on both sides of politics necessary to support the amendments, the introduction of data disclosure laws in Australia may still go ahead as early as 2008. Data disclosure laws have attracted wide-ranging support since a review of the Privacy Act began early this year by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC). The ALRC is releasing a discussion paper next month recommending the introduction of security breach disclosure laws in Australia with the final report to be delivered to the federal Attorney General, Philip Ruddock in March, 2008. The recommendation also has the support of the Federal Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, who believes Australia should be following the lead of the United States. "I think its good business to notify customers [of a breach] although I don't think notification is appopriate in all circumstances, it really depends on the level of damage created," she told Computerworld. Only this week Gartner's vice president of research, Rich Mogull, said legislative protection in Australia is critical. Mogull said the introduction of disclosure laws in the US have been the biggest single driver in improving the IT security landscape. He said 40 states in the US now have data breach disclosure laws. Introducing the private senators Bill to parliament, Senator Stott Despoja, said research shows that more than two-thirds of Australian organizations experience six losses of sensitive data each year. She said a report from the IT Policy Compliance Group found these breaches reportedly include customer, financial, corporate employee and IT security data which is stolen, leaked or inappropriately destroyed. "These reports of data security breaches and losses of personal information have coincided with an increase in identity theft, which has implications for affected persons' finances, harassment by debt collectors, credit denials and law enforcement scrutiny for crimes committed by another individual," Senator Stott Despoja said. "At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of proposals to rationalise, centralise and streamline many government services and databases, the purchase of Australian companies by offshore private equity funds and a series of business mergers and acquisitions which will make it easier for large-scale data breaches. "There is a need for this legislation to protect Australians and their personal information. "The incidence and severity of identity theft can be ameliorated through greater awareness and pre-warning when personal information is obtained by or disclosed to, an unauthorised party," she said. "Many overseas governments have already responded to community concern about data security breaches by implementing legislative requirements for organisations and agencies to notify affected persons of data security breaches. "Such requirements are common in the United States and the European Commission is expected to pass the European Directive on Data Protection later in 2007 to impose similar obligations. "In order to give individuals more control over their personal information and to satisfy public expectations, Parliament must legislate to require Commonwealth agencies and organisations to tell individuals when their personal information has been compromised," she said. "Measures can be implemented to lessen the impact of identity theft, but only if persons are aware of the loss of their information. Such notification requirements could also facilitate greater awareness of data security breach issues and improve security practices, as has occurred in other countries. "I hope my colleagues will support this straightforward amendment to the Privacy Act," Senator Stott Despoja said. Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Thu Aug 16 16:15:26 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 16:15:26 +1000 Subject: [LINK] format for comments Message-ID: <20070816062025.CF4F220B9@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> At 12:34 PM 14/08/2007, Marghanita da Cruz wrote: >... From memory, "the comment form" was a word document... Yes, the consultation process for ISO/IEC 29500 (OOXML) seemed a bit "last century". So when John Tucker, CEO, and John Castles, Chairman, of Standards Australia dropped in to visit today, I made a few suggestions: . It should be possible to use some online technology for consultations, standards development and publishing, while enhancing the integrity of the process and solving administrative costs. It should even be possible to make the documents available free online, without sending Standards Australia broke. ;-) 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 From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Thu Aug 16 16:39:06 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 16:39:06 +1000 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney Message-ID: >Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:03:53 +1000 >I look forward to your eagle-eyes also picking up the *actual* >report, when it comes to light! Eagle-eyes Stewart Carter has picked up some relevant information from auDA Minutes in June. In eCommerce Report 14, 11 of 8 August 2007 http://www.ecommercereport.com.au/ [subscription required] Stewart reports that the possibility of registrations direct into 1TLDs (e.g. ibm.au) is dead, because most submissions to the review opposed it. The review's focus is now primarily on some easing in the rules relating to sale and transfer of domain-names - although, he feels, probably not going as far as allowing a secondary market to emerge. [I'm a subscriber, so I can use the remnants of the Copyright Act's 'fair dealings' provisions to post this. And I have no financial or other interest in eCommerce Report, so I can post the source, whereas Stewart would probably hesitate to do so on the grounds of commercial promotion.] -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From stephen at melbpc.org.au Thu Aug 16 16:44:28 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:44:28 GMT Subject: [LINK] web information architecture - what are the issues you see? Message-ID: <20070816064428.3331317066@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> At 12:49 PM 15/08/2007, Eric writes: > I'm organising a conference for web information architecture ... . the lax exploitation of online channels such as Web chat, IM and click- to-call means business is losing profit from a potentially huge market. "Business have setup Web sites but aren't addressing the customer - it's like the lights are on but no one is home." While Hayden said that highly integrated Web chat, IM and click-to-call technology is "still a little crude", he pointed to a number of financial instructions which employ stealth customer activity monitoring on their Web sites to direct IM inquires to specific agents based on skills-based routing. "2008 will be a critical inflection point as Web technologies and contact centre channels and operations become integrated," Rutledge said. "Outbound telemarketing will be replaced with up-selling campaigns and call-backs and there will be more use of e-mails, SMS and Web chat." The Bank of America has increased mortgage sales by 800 percent since deploying online customer contact tools. -- Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From georgebray at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 20:56:57 2007 From: georgebray at gmail.com (George Bray) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 20:56:57 +1000 Subject: [LINK] [OT] Downer on Uranium Message-ID: <635bd2180708160356q7a6e0a30r5b9a010733bc4c3b@mail.gmail.com> Deja-vu all over again, geo Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1610589.htm Broadcast: 06/04/2006 Clarke and Dawe on the sale of uranium (John Clarke plays Alexander Downer and Bryan Dawe plays the interviewer) INTERVIEWER: Mr Downer, thanks for your time. ALEXANDER DOWNER: It's a great pleasure to be here, Bryan, and good evening. INTERVIEWER: Congratulations on the sale of uranium to China. ALEXANDER DOWNER: Thank you. This is a moment of enormous economic significance to all Australians. It's great to be part of that great Chinese powerhouse. INTERVIEWER: It must be very complicated, the international uranium market? ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yes, well spotted. It's a market of great complexity, Bryan... INTERVIEWER: So you understand it? ALEXANDER DOWNER: ..particularly in its diplomatic aspects, in this case. INTERVIEWER: You do understand it? ALEXANDER DOWNER: The international uranium trade? INTERVIEWER: Yes. ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yes, we couldn't have done this if we didn't have an intimate understanding of the international uranium trade. INTERVIEWER: So the Australian Government must be very good at this if it knows so much about it? ALEXANDER DOWNER: I think we can take some pride. We understand, I think, the international uranium market as well as any other country on earth, yes. INTERVIEWER: Yet you don't understand the international wheat trade, do you, Mr Downer? ALEXANDER DOWNER: Bryan, we do understand intimately the international wheat trade in terms of its scope and nature. INTERVIEWER: Yes, but nobody told you exactly how it all happens? ALEXANDER DOWNER: That's right, that's been the difficulty there. INTERVIEWER: You weren't told things? ALEXANDER DOWNER: Nobody told us, no, nobody told my department. We didn't know anything about what was going on. INTERVIEWER: So, Mr Downer, what haven't you been told about the uranium business? ALEXANDER DOWNER: What haven't I been told about it? INTERVIEWER: Yes. ALEXANDER DOWNER: I don't know that yet. INTERVIEWER: Well, when will you know what you haven't been told? ALEXANDER DOWNER: I won't know that for a fair bit, in my view. INTERVIEWER: OK, Mr Downer, what for example, is a peaceful purpose? ALEXANDER DOWNER: A peaceful purpose, Bryan - as its name suggests - is simply a purpose, an aim, which is not bellicose. INTERVIEWER: It's a long way away? ALEXANDER DOWNER: No, no, no, no. I mean it's not war-like, Bryan. It's an aim which is not war-like. The essential point is the uranium can't be used in weapons. INTERVIEWER: Because that's what the uranium we're selling to China is going to be used for, isn't it, peaceful purposes? ALEXANDER DOWNER: Peaceful purposes - it said that on the docket. I made that very clear to them, Bryan. Written on the top of the docket, "Peaceful purposes". INTERVIEWER: Right, good. And can peaceful purposes be imposed on another nation, Mr Downer? ALEXANDER DOWNER: No, that can't be the case. That would be logically impossible. That's a contradiction in terms. You can't impose peaceful purposes on another nation. INTERVIEWER: Right. Isn't that what's happening in Iraq? ALEXANDER DOWNER: No, Bryan. INTERVIEWER: Well, it is. ALEXANDER DOWNER: The products we're exporting to Iraq are freedom and democracy. INTERVIEWER: So you can impose freedom and democracy on other countries? ALEXANDER DOWNER: I think scientific tests would currently indicate you can't, Bryan. INTERVIEWER: I thought it was mission accomplished two years ago, Mr Downer? ALEXANDER DOWNER: I think we've had to review our concept of what Iraqis are. It turns out there are three completely separate ethnic groups living in an area we called Iraq. INTERVIEWER: Nobody told you about that? ALEXANDER DOWNER: Nobody told my office, Bryan. We've had no phone calls, no notification, no faxes. INTERVIEWER: Are we going to be selling uranium to India? ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, I don't know that yet, Bryan. INTERVIEWER: Haven't been informed, of course. ALEXANDER DOWNER: Nobody said a dickie bird. I haven't seen the PM since Saturday. INTERVIEWER: Mr Downer, thanks for your time. ALEXANDER DOWNER: Always a pleasure, Bryan. INTERVIEWER: Likewise. ALEXANDER DOWNER: Helen Coonan, please. Yes, Alexander, Helen. How are you? Listen, this big clean-up you're doing at the ABC - I've got a name for you. Bryan Dawe. From kim at cynosure.com.au Thu Aug 16 23:39:51 2007 From: kim at cynosure.com.au (Kim Davies) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:39:51 +0000 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070816133951.GA12240@malaria> Quoting Roger Clarke on Thursday August 16, 2007: | | Stewart reports that the possibility of registrations direct into | 1TLDs (e.g. ibm.au) is dead, because most submissions to the review | opposed it. Perhaps I'm being picky, but these are not "1TLDs". A top-level domain (TLD) is "au" or "com" etc., a second-level domain (2LD) is "com.au" or "ibm.au", etc. The proposal is to allow end-user registration in the second-level, rather than the third-level. kim From stephen at melbpc.org.au Fri Aug 17 01:35:41 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:35:41 GMT Subject: [LINK] mobile phone video Message-ID: <20070816153541.7ED8817074@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> So, apparently the Federal Government is going to auction-off some (all?) of the analog TV spectrum for mobile phones. (DVB-H) And, these frequencies will now be used to multi-cast several TV programs (eg news and sport) for mobile phones. Thus the TV channels have their new digital frequencies, AND get to 'keep' their old broadcast frequencies, just using a different technology. Bah, Humbug .. I'd prefer better Internet access .. Mobile battle over TV formats Michael Sainsbury | August 16, 2007 AUSTRALIA's mobile phone networks are now convinced their customers want to watch television on their phones and are searching for ways to provide them more video content. At the moment, Australian mobile networks use so-called Unicast technology; MBMS is at the centre of a mobile video standards war now under way in the global telecommunications sector. Battling for position with mobile network operators is another technology called DVB-H. The federal Government is planning to auction TV spectrum for DVB-H use later this year. Ericsson is pushing MBMS whereas rivals such as Nokia are promoting DVB-H, which is gaining widespread acceptance in Europe. -- Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server From ivan at itrundle.com Fri Aug 17 07:56:16 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 07:56:16 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP Message-ID: <228570A9-B482-4AC0-ACFB-F72FDF936F1A@itrundle.com> Obviously not ready for prime-time stuff. My household experienced a brown-out and then a black-out last night, and upon recovery, Skype wouldn't login. I thought that it might have been related, until I read this: "UPDATED 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it?s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience. Additionally, downloads of Skype have been temporarily disabled. We will make downloads available again as quickly as possible." Notably, the stock price of eBay went down on this announcement (i.e., it's serious - eBay owns Skype). (I updated my Skype yesterday with a new beta - what a big snafu.) iT From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Fri Aug 17 08:42:45 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:42:45 +1000 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney In-Reply-To: <20070816133951.GA12240@malaria> References: <20070816133951.GA12240@malaria> Message-ID: At 13:39 +0000 16/8/07, Kim Davies wrote: >Quoting Roger Clarke on Thursday August 16, 2007: >| >| Stewart reports that the possibility of registrations direct into >| 1TLDs (e.g. ibm.au) is dead, because most submissions to the review >| opposed it. > >Perhaps I'm being picky, but these are not "1TLDs". A top-level domain >(TLD) is "au" or "com" etc., a second-level domain (2LD) is "com.au" or >"ibm.au", etc. The proposal is to allow end-user registration in the >second-level, rather than the third-level. Thanks Kim. My mistake, not Stewart's. I was focussing on the rest of the sentence, and phrased that bit incorrectly. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From stil at stilgherrian.com Fri Aug 17 08:43:15 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:43:15 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: <228570A9-B482-4AC0-ACFB-F72FDF936F1A@itrundle.com> Message-ID: On 17/8/07 7:56 AM, "Ivan Trundle" wrote: > Obviously not ready for prime-time stuff. My household experienced a > brown-out and then a black-out last night, and upon recovery, Skype > wouldn't login. I thought that it might have been related, until I > read this: > > "UPDATED 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging into > Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it?s a software > issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours.[snip] Hmmm... When there's a storm or a crash or whatever, "some users" don't have electricity for hours at a time, but we never say "electricity isn't ready for prime time". Cars and trucks are "prime time", even though they go into the workshop for a day or so every now and then -- or crash violently, killing all occupants. Are we having unrealistic expectations of the new technologies, expecting them to somehow be magically perfect? Have we all forgotten that Things Do Not Work Perfectly, and that we have to do without them occasionally? Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From ivan at itrundle.com Fri Aug 17 09:04:46 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:04:46 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <874D9CB9-535C-4A98-9D38-2FE3A62DDEF4@itrundle.com> To be fair, Skype's byline is 'take a deep breath', after all... Upon reflection, and given that I use Skype every day, and often, I realise that I might have simply vented some frustration rather than consider what it all means. You're right, though, Stil - but in this instance, millions of people have been affected by the outage, whereas the examples you've quoted aren't quite so omnipresent in their impact. Our expectations are often tempered by track records: my neighbour is without heating - again - for another week because of an equipment failure, but on past experience, he shrugs and says 'it'll be fixed eventually'. But it does bring to mind the monoculture argument: and that we should learn from nature and enjoy diversity in all things, and support that diversity. iT On 17/08/2007, at 8:43 AM, Stilgherrian wrote: > On 17/8/07 7:56 AM, "Ivan Trundle" wrote: >> Obviously not ready for prime-time stuff. My household experienced a >> brown-out and then a black-out last night, and upon recovery, Skype >> wouldn't login. I thought that it might have been related, until I >> read this: >> >> "UPDATED 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging into >> Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it?s a software >> issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours.[snip] > > Hmmm... When there's a storm or a crash or whatever, "some users" > don't have > electricity for hours at a time, but we never say "electricity > isn't ready > for prime time". > > Cars and trucks are "prime time", even though they go into the > workshop for > a day or so every now and then -- or crash violently, killing all > occupants. > > Are we having unrealistic expectations of the new technologies, > expecting > them to somehow be magically perfect? Have we all forgotten that > Things Do > Not Work Perfectly, and that we have to do without them occasionally? > > Stil > > > -- > Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ > Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia > mobile +61 407 623 600 > fax +61 2 9516 5630 > ABN 25 231 641 421 > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Ivan Trundle http://globallearning.com.au ivan at globallearning.com.au ph: +61 (0)2 6249 1344 mb: +61 (0)418 244 259 skype: callto://ivanovitchk From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Fri Aug 17 09:08:16 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:08:16 +1000 Subject: [LINK] web information architecture - what are the issues you see? In-Reply-To: References: <20070815234120.D5D951C151@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <20070816231119.C4CE5167A@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 11:05 AM 16/08/2007, Janet Hawtin wrote: >On 8/15/07, Tom Worthington wrote: > >>As an example I propose we provide government, education and >>housing, in a "box" for remote indigenous communities ... > >I do not know enough about Tom's proposal to be able to comment on >that directly. ... There are more details at the web address I provided: . >... If this is pay to play access to a subscription to software then >that has some social implications. If it means there are less face >to face services available then that also has implications. ... Yes. My assumption is that if you have to have the federal government interfering in your life, it will be less intrusive if it is done via a computer than face to face. Also it will be cheaper and the money saved can be spent on useful services. As an example the federal government now provides reports online. That saves on printing costs and makes the reports more widely available. For those without Internet access there is free Internet access at public libraries. >... What do those choices mean for local people in terms of skills, >access, leadership, control, voice, local value, privacy and rights >to participation and access to services etc. Given a choice between having a succession of highly paid public servants from the city come in, interfere in my local community and then leave (taking most of the government money with them), or a web based service, I think I would prefer the web based service. >What do those choices mean for local people in terms of skills, >access, leadership, control, voice, local value, privacy and rights >to participation and access to services etc. ... My thought was to provide tools which the local community could use to govern themselves and provide many of the services themselves. The local council could use a government approved web based system to administer local services using local staff, instead of having someone from elsewhere doing it to them. Local welfare organisations could provide services with the accounting done on-line, allowing automated remote auditing. Instead of having a welfare worker telling you what you could and couldn't spend your welfare payment on, an auotmated system would do you a budget and it would tell you what you could and could not spend money on. 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 From cas at taz.net.au Fri Aug 17 09:44:34 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:44:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <156638.91636.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <156638.91636.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070816234434.GS4898@taz.net.au> On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 09:06:49PM -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > Totally agree Paul. Craig's point, maybe somewhat in jest, of course is censorship! no, it wasn't censorship. it was an expression of what i would consider to be an ideal stated of affairs (i.e. the complete absence of sport on TV). i said "wouldn't it be wonderful if...". i didn't say "ban all sport on TV and imprison or execute anyone who wants to broadcast it" but, of course, over-reaction and hyperbole are the appropriate response to anyone making a non-mainstream comment. can't have anyone thinking - or worse, expressing - unfashionable thoughts. that might lead to people waking up from their sport and other soporific rubbish-induced comas and taking notice of what's happening arounding them. don't think, barrack! good for sport, great for politics. craig -- craig sanders From stil at stilgherrian.com Fri Aug 17 09:58:22 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:58:22 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: <874D9CB9-535C-4A98-9D38-2FE3A62DDEF4@itrundle.com> Message-ID: On 17/8/07 9:04 AM, "Ivan Trundle" wrote: > You're right, though, Stil - but in this instance, millions of people > have been affected by the outage, whereas the examples you've quoted > aren't quite so omnipresent in their impact. > > Our expectations are often tempered by track records: my neighbour is > without heating - again - for another week because of an equipment > failure, but on past experience, he shrugs and says 'it'll be fixed > eventually'. This is true enough. However the "experience" is often based on "my personal experience so far" rather than the overall reality. An example is hard disc failure. Many people happily continue with no data backups because the hard drive has worked perfectly so far. Of course, it can fail completely, and without warning. > But it does bring to mind the monoculture argument: and that we > should learn from nature and enjoy diversity in all things, and > support that diversity. Indeed. Or at least not centralise things TOO much. Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Fri Aug 17 10:17:35 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 10:17:35 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: <874D9CB9-535C-4A98-9D38-2FE3A62DDEF4@itrundle.com> References: <874D9CB9-535C-4A98-9D38-2FE3A62DDEF4@itrundle.com> Message-ID: <672uje$528o0m@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 09:04 AM 17/08/2007, Ivan Trundle wrote: >You're right, though, Stil - but in this instance, millions of people >have been affected by the outage, whereas the examples you've quoted >aren't quite so omnipresent in their impact. The issue is big because people with little nous have this thing running (it's free, you know) and are confused as to why their connection isn't running. You guys rock on here. I was able to send the Update info to a friend who was telling me about this last night to tell her NOT to do as I had advised when I thought it was a password issue (her analysis of the problem), which was to uninstall and reload. would you believe it just connected on my machine as I was typing this message? Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From ivan at itrundle.com Fri Aug 17 10:45:39 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 10:45:39 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: <672uje$528o0m@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <874D9CB9-535C-4A98-9D38-2FE3A62DDEF4@itrundle.com> <672uje$528o0m@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: On 17/08/2007, at 10:17 AM, Jan Whitaker wrote: > At 09:04 AM 17/08/2007, Ivan Trundle wrote: >> You're right, though, Stil - but in this instance, millions of people >> have been affected by the outage, whereas the examples you've quoted >> aren't quite so omnipresent in their impact. > > The issue is big because people with little nous have this thing > running (it's free, you know) and are confused as to why their > connection isn't running. You guys rock on here. I was able to send > the Update info to a friend who was telling me about this last > night to tell her NOT to do as I had advised when I thought it was > a password issue (her analysis of the problem), which was to > uninstall and reload. > > would you believe it just connected on my machine as I was typing > this message? > > Jan Don't be so sure... I saw it come online for a few minutes, and it's off again. Skype's home page will tell you more, and when it revives itself. iT From linda at databasics.com.au Fri Aug 17 11:06:18 2007 From: linda at databasics.com.au (Linda Rouse) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:06:18 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <20070816234434.GS4898@taz.net.au> References: <156638.91636.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070816234434.GS4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: I must say I'm with you Craig! It would be wonderful to lose sport from TV and all the media! As for Paul's comment (below) - IMHO it has to be the biggest load of rubbish... : >I expect that enthusiasm for sport, fostered by seeing it on TV, >encourages people of all ages out to participate and become a bit >healthier and engage in soical interaction, in a way that no amount of >gym memberships and pounding the pavements in solitary jogging can achieve. Try telling all those couch potatoes to go out and exercise!!! You have to be joking.. the whole point of watching sport on telly is so you DONT have to go anywhere at all, or think! regards Linda At 9:44 AM +1000 17/8/07, Craig Sanders wrote: >On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 09:06:49PM -0700, David Goldstein wrote: >> Totally agree Paul. Craig's point, maybe somewhat in jest, of >>course is censorship! > >no, it wasn't censorship. it was an expression of what i would consider >to be an ideal stated of affairs (i.e. the complete absence of sport >on TV). > >i said "wouldn't it be wonderful if...". i didn't say "ban all sport on >TV and imprison or execute anyone who wants to broadcast it" > >but, of course, over-reaction and hyperbole are the appropriate response >to anyone making a non-mainstream comment. can't have anyone thinking - >or worse, expressing - unfashionable thoughts. that might lead to people >waking up from their sport and other soporific rubbish-induced comas and >taking notice of what's happening arounding them. > > >don't think, barrack! good for sport, great for politics. > >craig > >-- >craig sanders >_______________________________________________ >Link mailing list >Link at mailman.anu.edu.au >http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link -- ================= Linda Rouse, Information Manager DataBasics Pty Limited Phone 1300 886 238 (bus.) Email linda at databasics.com.au Web http://www.databasics.com.au From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Fri Aug 17 13:58:30 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:58:30 +1000 Subject: [LINK] 'Spock.com hopes to become the Google of people searches' Message-ID: >http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070808-spock-com-hopes-to-become-the-google-of-people-searches.html > >Spock.com hopes to become the Google of people searches >By Jacqui Cheng | Published: August 08, 2007 - 11:14AM CT > >A new web search service has launched, but this one doesn't provide >results for the entire web-it only provides results about people. >Spock.com went into public beta today after several months of private >testingand prides itself in providing the "richest people search >experience on the web." > >"Searching for people is one of the most important applications on the >web; however, the user experience is highly fragmented and unsatisfying >today," claims Spock CEO Jaideep Singh. That's why the site's sole >purpose is to index and gather information about individuals and offer >that data when users search for general terms such as "blogger," >"actor," or even specific names. > >While creepy-sounding at first, Spock.com does allow users to manage >their own "profiles" on the site by allowing them to import information >from any number of places, such as LinkedIn, Friendster, and MySpace. >Users can also add tags about themselves, upload pictures, and list >contact information if they so choose. If a web site is going to try to >index everything about you, you may as well beat it to the punch by >including accurate information, right? > >However, the general public can also add tags, pictures, and other >information about you as well, possibly leaving the integrity of the >personal profile in doubt. As Wikipedia has learned, some members may >choose to go through and vandalize a number of profiles with false or >damaging information, And if someone adds you to the site against your >will... well, you're out of luck. Once you're on, you're on-especially >if you aren't managing your own profile. Spock cofounder Jay Bhatti told >AFP that each profile "will go through a strict process based on quality >insurance [sic]" to ensure that it's not fake or incorrect, but it's >unclear how site administrators plan to check every single fact posted >about every single person on the site for correctness. > >This naturally raises concerns from privacy advocates about personal >information being organized, collected, and offered to others online >without one's knowledge or consent. And with Spock claiming to have >already indexed some 100 million individuals-with another million being >added each day-it seems pretty likely that a large number of those >people are not managing their own profiles. Spock is unlikely to be held >accountable for potentially false information that users are posting >about other users, however. The 1996 Communications Decency Act has >repeatedly been interpreted by courts as absolving web site operators of >materials being posted by third parties. But if Spock profiles begin to >look like those that have shown up on gossip site dontdatehimgirl.com, >then that question could be revisited once again. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Fri Aug 17 14:18:08 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:18:08 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Ars: 'Great strides made in search engine privacy' Message-ID: [Comments embedded] Great strides made in search engine privacy, says report By Jacqui Cheng | Published: August 09, 2007 - 11:27AM CT http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070809-great-strides-made-in-search-engine-privacy-says-report.html "Privacy" is the name of the game among US search engines these days, and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is pleased with the progress that has been made so far. In a report released yesterday, titled "Search Privacy Practices: A Work in Progress" (PDF), the CDT outlined some of the changes that the five major search engines have made in order to be more conscious of privacy concerns. The organization also pointed out that the major search engines are beginning to aggressively compete with each other in order to provide the "best" privacy protections for their users. "We hope this signals the emergence of a new competitive marketplace for privacy," said CDT president Leslie Harris in a statement. "By themselves, these recent changes represent only a small step toward providing users the full range of privacy protections they need and deserve, but if this competitive push continues it can only stand to benefit consumers." The report reiterated many of the recent search policy changes that have made headlines in the last several months. In June, Google agreed to anonymize its search records after 18 months instead of 24 (or previous to that, never). That announcement was followed by one from Ask.com in July, which also said that it would also anonymize its data after 18 months, and then Microsoft just days later-also 18 months. Both AOL and Yahoo! have also agreed to shorten the length of time they keep records around, undercutting the others by anonymizing records after just 13 months. [18 month and even 13 month retention periods are wildly excessive. By applauding such inadequate provisions, CDT is at dire risk of criticism as being too close to business.] The report also cited Ask.com's new AskEraser tool as offering a level of user control that the others do not. AskEraser is a preference that users can set on the site, ensuring that absolutely no search records will be retained for that user past a few hours. CDT praises Ask.com for AskEraser and points out that while the others offer options to their users to extend the length of time their search records are stored, no others currently allow users to choose not to have records retained. CDT recommends that other search engines "continue to work towards providing controls that allow users to not only extend but also limit the information stored about them." [*Much* better. The test is 'retention for the period needed and no more': - you want a one-hit search, then no retention at all (other than incidental caching, with no systematic mechanisms for retrieval) - you want to leave your search-session open for a minute, one minute; for one hour one hour - you consent to or request the building of a 'searcher's profile', then retention of what's needed in order to implement it [i.e. 'with genuine, informed, non-coerced consent' trumps whatever a 'privacy absolutist' may want for themselves.] The CDT provides other recommendations as well. While the organization acknowledges that some search engines have legitimate reasons for keeping data around for advertising purposes, ... [If that reporting it correct, then CDT is being *far* too friendly to business, and risks losing the respect of privacy advocates. [Search-engine operators don't have 'legitimate' reasons for keeping data; they have natural desires to do so, but the great god of profit-making does not represent legitimacy.] ... [CDT] says that those companies need to store the data securely (hello, AOL) and provide notice to their users about what is being stored and for how long. The CDT also says that the search engines should work together to promote privacy protections "across the board" with smaller partners. ['Notice' is part of an opt-out scheme, not a consent/opt-in scheme, and is completely inadequate.] Despite the progress that has been made, however, the CDT still feels that there is a need for stronger privacy legislation. "No amount of self-regulation in the search privacy space can replace the need for a comprehensive federal privacy law to protect consumers from bad actors," the report says. "With consumers sharing more data than ever before online, the time has come to harmonize our nation's privacy laws into a simple, flexible framework." [Here, CDT has sprung into the strong advocacy position, and *gains* advocate respect. Even EPIC has hesitated to declare the position that clearly - because of the longstanding 'realpolitik' in DC that saw privacy law as unachievable. The tide is clearly turning, and 9-year-old business is being resumed: http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/CACM99.html ] [Caveat: time-pressure means that this post has been done at face value on the (normally pretty reliable) Ars report, without reference to CDT's actual document] -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au Fri Aug 17 14:48:32 2007 From: pbrooks-link at layer10.com.au (Paul Brooks) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:48:32 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46C528A0.3030706@layer10.com.au> Stilgherrian wrote: > On 17/8/07 9:04 AM, "Ivan Trundle" wrote: > >> You're right, though, Stil - but in this instance, millions of people >> have been affected by the outage, whereas the examples you've quoted >> aren't quite so omnipresent in their impact. >> >> Our expectations are often tempered by track records: my neighbour is >> without heating - again - for another week because of an equipment >> failure, but on past experience, he shrugs and says 'it'll be fixed >> eventually'. >> > > This is true enough. However the "experience" is often based on "my personal > experience so far" rather than the overall reality. > > An example is hard disc failure. Many people happily continue with no data > backups because the hard drive has worked perfectly so far. Of course, it > can fail completely, and without warning. > Was I the only one that picked up an an additional line in Stil's original message: > (I updated my Skype yesterday with a new beta - what a big snafu.) A new BETA? is it really reasonable to question if something is not ready for prime-time, when its at Beta-test stage? From adrian at creative.net.au Fri Aug 17 15:38:01 2007 From: adrian at creative.net.au (Adrian Chadd) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:38:01 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: <46C528A0.3030706@layer10.com.au> References: <46C528A0.3030706@layer10.com.au> Message-ID: <20070817053801.GV23762@skywalker.creative.net.au> On Fri, Aug 17, 2007, Paul Brooks wrote: > > (I updated my Skype yesterday with a new beta - what a big snafu.) > > A new BETA? is it really reasonable to question if something is not > ready for prime-time, when its at Beta-test stage? Google mail? adrian From david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au Fri Aug 17 16:43:06 2007 From: david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au (David Boxall) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:43:06 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] In-Reply-To: <200708082211.01620.dlochrin@d2.net.au> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> <200708082211.01620.dlochrin@d2.net.au> Message-ID: <46C5437A.1010008@hunterlink.net.au> At 8/08/2007 10:11 PM David Lochrin wrote: > The sooner basic telecommunications infrastructure goes back into public ownership and Telstra is relegated to insignificance the better, in my view. In discussing Telstra and similar issues, I've been in the habit of referring to the alienation of infrastructure from public ownership as treason. That has been challenged, on occasion, on the basis that an elected government can't commit treason. Definitions of the term vary over time. Classically, treason was a crime against the sovereign. Today, some try to characterise it as one against the government. To me, treason is a crime against the nation, state or citizenry. Privatising the telecommunications infrastructure qualifies. I hope establishing the principle that government may be held to account will mitigate their ideological excesses. -- David Boxall | Drink no longer water, | but use a little wine | for thy stomach's sake ... | King James Bible | 1 Timothy 5:23 From david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au Fri Aug 17 16:44:06 2007 From: david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au (David Boxall) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:44:06 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early] In-Reply-To: <200708060012.l760C7Qn020271@ah.net> References: <06ca01c7d4c8$51e10e80$f5a32b80$@net.au> <46B3E1FA.3000701@canb.auug.org.au> <20070804230828.GF4898@taz.net.au> <46B5708C.8080104@hunterlink.net.au> <200708060012.l760C7Qn020271@ah.net> Message-ID: <46C543B6.9010001@hunterlink.net.au> At 6/08/2007 9:57 AM Adam Todd wrote: > . . . > > BTW Telstra is not the "custodian" of the network infrastructure, it > owns it. If it were a custodian, then the infrastructure could be > given or transferred to the management of anyone. No Adam, Ownership bestows custody. The owner is custodian, unless they delegate custody. Even then, the owner is responsible for ensuring that the custodian meets its obligations. For example: if one entity builds a road and delegates custody to a second entity, then the second entity has an obligation to make sure that the road is maintained in a safe condition. The owner is still responsible for ensuring that the obligation is met. If the obligation isn't met, then both owner and custodian are liable. The owner, however, may have a case against the custodian. -- David Boxall | The more that wise people learn | The more they come to appreciate | How much they don't know. --Confucius From david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au Fri Aug 17 16:44:57 2007 From: david.boxall at hunterlink.net.au (David Boxall) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:44:57 +1000 Subject: [LINK] digital TV conversion - psychology of the consumer In-Reply-To: <46BA5690.1020602@ramin.com.au> References: <560785.65748.qm@web50506.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070807005101.GG4898@taz.net.au> <46B8ED4F.7070806@ozemail.com.au> <20070808004529.GH4898@taz.net.au> <46B919BD.4060301@ozemail.com.au> <46B92175.6040804@lannet.com.au> <61fg7n$4sohrj@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46BA2FDB.2030806@praxis.com.au> <46BA5690.1020602@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: <46C543E9.8040608@hunterlink.net.au> At 9/08/2007 9:49 AM Marghanita da Cruz wrote: > To put this all in the best possible light - the Government has an > obligation to protect the value of the spectrum/existing business > interests. In the worst possible light they are opting for the status > quo in Media. > Maybe the incumbents are the reason for poor takeup of digital TV. From where I am, I can receive programming from Newcastle (all UHF) and Sydney (VHF only). Sometimes, signal quality is abominable. I'd attributed that to local interference, until I noticed that the commercial stations were transmitting garbage (the programs may have been bad, but the signal quality was worse) while ABC and SBS came through crystal clear. What I found particularly interesting was that, on occasions, one commercial network was transmitting poor quality signals from both Sydney and Newcastle while the other commercial networks' signal quality was good. Are the commercial networks deliberately fouling the digital TV waters? -- David Boxall | Dogs look up to us | And cats look down on us | But pigs treat us as equals --Winston Churchill From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Fri Aug 17 16:40:34 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:40:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Australian ICT carbon emissions audit Message-ID: <20070817064954.A70CD12F2@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> "The Australian Computer Society (ACS), the nation's peak professional body for the ICT sector, today delivered Australia's first ICT carbon emissions audit, revealing that ICT use by Australian businesses generated 7.94 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide in 2005, which is the close equivalent to the civil aviation and the metal production Industries. ... In response to the audit's findings, the ACS today launches a Policy Statement for Green ICT, which includes suggestions on initiatives ICT professionals, government, consumers and ICT manufacturers can take to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions attributable to the use of ICT equipment. ..." From: "ACS reveals ICT's Carbon Footprint - Calls for energy star rating for IT products as part of a green ICT industry policy". media release: . See also: * "Policy Statement on Green ICT": * Audit report " Audit of Carbon Emissions resulting from ICT usage by Australian Business" (ACS members only): The ACS President will be talking about it Tuesday in the morning session at the Green CIO conference in Sydney . In the afternoon session I will be talking about ACS Green IT Group . 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 From ivan at itrundle.com Fri Aug 17 17:09:40 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:09:40 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: <46C528A0.3030706@layer10.com.au> References: <46C528A0.3030706@layer10.com.au> Message-ID: On 17/08/2007, at 2:48 PM, Paul Brooks wrote: > Stilgherrian wrote: >> On 17/8/07 9:04 AM, "Ivan Trundle" wrote: >> >>> You're right, though, Stil - but in this instance, millions of >>> people >>> have been affected by the outage, whereas the examples you've quoted >>> aren't quite so omnipresent in their impact. >>> >>> Our expectations are often tempered by track records: my >>> neighbour is >>> without heating - again - for another week because of an equipment >>> failure, but on past experience, he shrugs and says 'it'll be fixed >>> eventually'. >>> >> >> This is true enough. However the "experience" is often based on >> "my personal >> experience so far" rather than the overall reality. >> >> An example is hard disc failure. Many people happily continue with >> no data >> backups because the hard drive has worked perfectly so far. Of >> course, it >> can fail completely, and without warning. >> > Was I the only one that picked up an an additional line in Stil's > original message: > > > (I updated my Skype yesterday with a new beta - what a big snafu.) > > A new BETA? is it really reasonable to question if something is not > ready for prime-time, when its at Beta-test stage? It was actually me that installed the beta, but that's not what caused the outage (it was in the software algorithms that they wrote for their server, not the client). There is still no resolution at this moment, though they claim it to be 'slightly better off'. http://heartbeat.skype.com/ (Nice page, but essentially useless) iT From wavey_one at yahoo.com Fri Aug 17 18:53:59 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 01:53:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney Message-ID: <439292.53015.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi Roger and anyone else interested! The Names Policy Panel, which is what's being referred to here, met again this week and mostly discussed whether registrants should have the ability to transfer their domain name to another eligible person. And if so, how should this be done. Examples include a managed transfer system and an open auction system such as Sedo. There are a lot of differing views with panelists. Within the next month there should a second public consultation through an Issues Paper canvassing options. There is also the issue of whether "the policy rules for asn.au, com.au, id.au, net.au and org.au be changed". Issues that have come up here is id.au is not very popular and where does someone go if they've got a hobby. There isn't really anywhere to go for a website for someone who just wants to, for example, put online their scrabble tips. Any other questions/comments? David See my website - http://technewsreview.com.au/ - for daily technology news updates. ----- Original Message ---- From: Roger Clarke To: link at anu.edu.au Sent: Thursday, 16 August, 2007 4:39:06 PM Subject: Re: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney >Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:03:53 +1000 >I look forward to your eagle-eyes also picking up the *actual* >report, when it comes to light! Eagle-eyes Stewart Carter has picked up some relevant information from auDA Minutes in June. In eCommerce Report 14, 11 of 8 August 2007 http://www.ecommercereport.com.au/ [subscription required] Stewart reports that the possibility of registrations direct into 1TLDs (e.g. ibm.au) is dead, because most submissions to the review opposed it. The review's focus is now primarily on some easing in the rules relating to sale and transfer of domain-names - although, he feels, probably not going as far as allowing a secondary market to emerge. [I'm a subscriber, so I can use the remnants of the Copyright Act's 'fair dealings' provisions to post this. And I have no financial or other interest in eCommerce Report, so I can post the source, whereas Stewart would probably hesitate to do so on the grounds of commercial promotion.] -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link at mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get the World's number 1 free email service. http://mail.yahoo.com.au From gdt at gdt.id.au Fri Aug 17 20:38:12 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:08:12 +0930 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney In-Reply-To: <439292.53015.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <439292.53015.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1187347092.6044.9.camel@andromache> On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 01:53 -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > Hi Roger and anyone else interested! > > The Names Policy Panel, which is what's being referred to here, met again this week and mostly discussed whether registrants should have the ability to transfer their domain name to another eligible person. And if so, how should this be done. Examples include a managed transfer system and an open auction system such as Sedo. Personally, I'd like the policy to become more attuned to the operational needs of business. For example, cutting off a major domain with no notice other than spam-like e-mail, on a Friday, with no out-of-hours support staff is operationally unacceptable. AARNet's sites have had two multi-day outages. Both of these were because the .au DNS is not operated to the same standards as the 99.999% availability of the packet-shuffling infrastructure. Also, the .AU DNS is deficient in support for IPv6 and DNSSEC. > There is also the issue of whether "the policy rules for asn.au, com.au, id.au, net.au and org.au be changed". Issues that have come up here is id.au is not very popular and where does someone go if they've got a hobby. There isn't really anywhere to go for a website for someone who just wants to, for example, put online their scrabble tips. Even finer divisions in the .au namespace may not be desirable. id.au is unpopular because of the lack of competitive pricing for that domain. Glen From jwhit at janwhitaker.com Fri Aug 17 21:54:49 2007 From: jwhit at janwhitaker.com (Jan Whitaker) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:54:49 +1000 Subject: [LINK] access to Britannica full articles Message-ID: <672uje$52k39a@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> from: http://web-owls.com/ Encyclopedia Britannica has put much of their content onto the web - but usually only the first hundred or so words of each article are displayed. You must subscribe to read the rest, or you can register for a free trial subscription. But there's another way! When the URL of the article has been clicked from a link on a webpage, the full text is displayed. Any links that you include in your website or blog will automatically take your readers to the full text version. Britannica endorses this technique, by the way, but warns that it won't work for links from HTML files on your PC. Instead, you must host the HTML file on a webserver. I guess it won't be long until we see a website offering links to every Britannica article, or a Firefox extension to streamline this process. Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 18 00:03:31 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (Stephen Loosley) Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:03:31 +1000 Subject: [LINK] access to Britannica full articles In-Reply-To: <672uje$52k39a@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <672uje$52k39a@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <20070817140431.0E4F564017@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> At 09:54 PM 17/08/2007, Jan writes: > from: http://web-owls.com/ > > Encyclopedia Britannica has put much of their content onto the web > but usually only the first hundred or so words .. When the URL of the > article has been clicked from a link on a page, the full text is displayed. Ah, one is guessing the Link Archives qualify as a webpage. Thus here is a test: EB on Wikis. Cheers, Jan .. Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia . From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 18 00:24:19 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (Stephen Loosley) Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:24:19 +1000 Subject: [LINK] access to Britannica full articles In-Reply-To: <20070817140431.0E4F564017@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> References: <672uje$52k39a@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <20070817140431.0E4F564017@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <20070817142510.79A4A64017@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> >> from: http://web-owls.com/ >> >> Encyclopedia Britannica has put much of their content onto the web >> but usually only the first hundred or so words ... When the URL of the >> article has been clicked from a link on a page, the full text is displayed. > > Ah, one is guessing the Link Archives qualify as a webpage. Thus here is > a test: EB on Wikis. No go .. ok so, try the Link Archives, once again, with the wiki link marked up: E-B .. Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your website or blog-post If you think a reference to this article on wiki will enhance your website, blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article, and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service. You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below. Copy and paste this code into your page : wiki Cheers, Jan ... Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From link at todd.inoz.com Sat Aug 18 01:43:23 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 01:43:23 +1000 Subject: [LINK] mobile phone video In-Reply-To: <20070816153541.7ED8817074@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070816153541.7ED8817074@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <200708171547.l7HFlwND022429@ah.net> At 01:35 AM 17/08/2007, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >So, apparently the Federal Government is going to auction-off some (all?) >of the analog TV spectrum for mobile phones. (DVB-H) > >And, these frequencies will now be used to multi-cast several TV programs >(eg news and sport) for mobile phones. > >Thus the TV channels have their new digital frequencies, AND get to 'keep' >their old broadcast frequencies, just using a different technology. Does this mean another round of new Mobile phones? From cas at taz.net.au Sat Aug 18 10:48:29 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 10:48:29 +1000 Subject: [LINK] access to Britannica full articles In-Reply-To: <20070817142510.79A4A64017@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> References: <672uje$52k39a@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <20070817140431.0E4F564017@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> <20070817142510.79A4A64017@vscan59.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <20070818004829.GT4898@taz.net.au> On Sat, Aug 18, 2007 at 12:24:19AM +1000, Stephen Loosley wrote: > >> from: http://web-owls.com/ > >> > >> Encyclopedia Britannica has put much of their content onto the web > >> but usually only the first hundred or so words ... When the URL of the > >> article has been clicked from a link on a page, the full text is displayed. > [...] > Copy and paste this code into your page : wiki smells of desperation(*), and too little too late at that. compare, for example, the above EB article with the following wikipedia article: wiki the wikipedia article has links to translations/versions in several other languages, numerous links to both other related wikipedia pages and external references, and the ability to browse the remainder of the wikipedia site (either via the links or via search). the EB article seems to be only in English, has no links to external references, and the full text of linked EB articles can only be viewed by subscribers. the wikipedia article also has significantly more detail about wikis than the EB article....and while that's only a sample of one, it's not surprising. the output of one paid author cannot compete with the output of dozens of unpaid volunteers. one might argue that that's to be expected in a general article, but that more specialised articles in EB (e.g. on a particular scientific discipline) would be written by a paid expert in the field. however, wikipedia also attracts several (unpaid volunteer) experts in the field to write and edit articles about their discipline. and that accords with my experience of wikipedia - the more fact-based/objective an article's topic is, the higher the quality of the article, the greater the convergence to current scientific consensus, and the less prone it is to vandalism and subversion. IMO, wikipedia is far from perfect but it is far better than closed encyclopedia like EB. bias, vandalism, and subversion in wikipedia articles is obvious, AND the reader can easily see both a history of changes to the article and any previous version of an article. in EB, the bias of the author is hidden behind the mantle of authority, and there is no access to either the revision history or previous versions of an article. (*) desperate and on the horns of a dilemman. if they're not open access, then they're utterly irrelevant on the web, but they're for profit and need paying subscribers: if they're too open then their business model fails. craig -- craig sanders From wavey_one at yahoo.com Sat Aug 18 14:53:14 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:53:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney Message-ID: <102669.53057.qm@web50502.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Glen, A question about your comment on the cutting off the major domain with no notice - I'd be interested in more information if you wish to discuss this off-list, or on-list. auDA has established a Security and Stability Advisory Committee as per the board minutes of June 07. See http://auda.org.au/minutes/auda-12062007/ Regarding DNSSEC, while not totally on this topic, security is an issue discussed at board meetings, and the minutes of the June 07 board meeting note: "The board noted the establishment of the SSAC, comprising individuals with a wide range of technical and security expertise. In most cases SSAC activities will directed by the board, however the SSAC will be able to act on its own initiative where appropriate and subject to board approval. It is expected that the first task of the SSAC will be a general threat assessment of .au." There is also a joint ISOC-auDA IPv6 working group that was established last year. I must find out what happened to it! On id.au, I'm not sure what can be done about competitive pricing here. The cost from auDA is under $5 for all .au domains and every registrar sells them cheaper than .com.au domains. See http://whatsinaname.com.au/ David ----- Original Message ---- From: Glen Turner To: David Goldstein Cc: Roger Clarke ; Link Mailing List Sent: Friday, 17 August, 2007 8:38:12 PM Subject: Re: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 01:53 -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > Hi Roger and anyone else interested! > > The Names Policy Panel, which is what's being referred to here, met again this week and mostly discussed whether registrants should have the ability to transfer their domain name to another eligible person. And if so, how should this be done. Examples include a managed transfer system and an open auction system such as Sedo. Personally, I'd like the policy to become more attuned to the operational needs of business. For example, cutting off a major domain with no notice other than spam-like e-mail, on a Friday, with no out-of-hours support staff is operationally unacceptable. AARNet's sites have had two multi-day outages. Both of these were because the .au DNS is not operated to the same standards as the 99.999% availability of the packet-shuffling infrastructure. Also, the .AU DNS is deficient in support for IPv6 and DNSSEC. > There is also the issue of whether "the policy rules for asn.au, com.au, id.au, net.au and org.au be changed". Issues that have come up here is id.au is not very popular and where does someone go if they've got a hobby. There isn't really anywhere to go for a website for someone who just wants to, for example, put online their scrabble tips. Even finer divisions in the .au namespace may not be desirable. id.au is unpopular because of the lack of competitive pricing for that domain. Glen ____________________________________________________________________________________ Feel safe with award winning spam protection on Yahoo!7 Mail. http://mail.yahoo.com.au From brd at iimetro.com.au Sun Aug 19 20:46:16 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:46:16 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46C81F78.5030407@iimetro.com.au> Works fine for me. IE 6.0.2800.1106 and Netscape 7.1 on Windows XP I don't block anything and have most things on. Howard Lowndes wrote: > Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with Firefox > 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a hangup. I have > the script blocker off. > > -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From sandeep.bhavsar at gmail.com Sun Aug 19 20:57:37 2007 From: sandeep.bhavsar at gmail.com (SANDEEP BHAVSAR) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 16:27:37 +0530 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C81F78.5030407@iimetro.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> <46C81F78.5030407@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: Dear Website works fine. I tried it on Mozila Firefox 1.5 on Linux. Regards On 8/19/07, Bernard Robertson-Dunn < brd at iimetro.com.au> wrote: > > Works fine for me. IE 6.0.2800.1106 and Netscape 7.1 on Windows XP > > I don't block anything and have most things on. > > Howard Lowndes wrote: > > > Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with Firefox > > 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a hangup. I have > > the script blocker off. > > > > > > -- > > Regards > brd > > Bernard Robertson-Dunn > Sydney Australia > brd at iimetro.com.au > > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Sandeep Bhavsar Librarian Dr.V.N.Bedekar Institute of Management Studies Thane(W) 400601 MUMBAI. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ email : sandeep.bhavsar at gmail.com Mob : 9987049099 elibrary :http://www.vpmthane.org/im/elib/main.htm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ From rick at praxis.com.au Sun Aug 19 21:23:15 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 21:23:15 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46C82823.1070207@praxis.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with Firefox > 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a hangup. I have > the script blocker off. This runs at the speed of light (refreshing!) and seems to work fine with Seamonkey 1.1.4 on Mac OS X. The three-level menus are fine, PDF download is okay. I'm impressed for a change. Howard, you may have some networking issues. Perhaps you could check a few other sites. I have experienced serious web site connection and download issues when my ISP had BGP probs at their end. cheers rickw From ivan at itrundle.com Sun Aug 19 21:50:29 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 21:50:29 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: Might have responded more quickly if you'd written 'http:// cas.gov.au', but never mind (the difference between a clickable link or just a string of characters in my mail browser). It opens in Safari on Mac, but it's ugly, and the content isn't well placed - a dud style sheet, for starters. In fact, no cross-browser testing, by the look of it (different in Firefox and IE7). The site generates an internal server error at http://validator.w3.org/ It's a miracle that it parses at all for some browsers. Just goes to show how tolerant browsers have to be. The home page claims to be XHTML in its doctype declaration, but the first two lines show that whoever built it doesn't understand XHTML, or forgot. There are 142 errors in the home page validation alone using the tools that I have at my disposal. If the doctype was HTML instead, it would improve the situation, but not much. By the time you get to line 287, there are so many errors that it becomes useless to check the code anymore. There are newly-invented tags in the html markup, such as (_blank, _self, _parent, and _top are okay, _new is not in the html or xhtml set). A javascript code snippet at line 367 is not escaped properly, and again at line 389. There is a quote missing from some html earlier than this, which throws it all into a level of instability. It uses a div element with invalid parameters and open img tags (some are closed), which leads the browser to open a div before the previous element is closed - this requires some work by the browser. No
  • items are closed, which is fine in loose html but not acceptable in XHTML. It uses uppercase tags when these are not permitted in XHTML. Overall, it's simply sloppy work all round, and whilst others might declare that the site is fine and dandy from their perspective, one look under the bonnet tells me that it's a Mickey Mouse (TM) job, with a mishmash of coding from what looks like at least two different people. iT On 19/08/2007, at 8:09 PM, Howard Lowndes wrote: > Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with > Firefox 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a > hangup. I have the script blocker off. > > > -- > Howard. > LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people lannetlinux.com> > When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; > When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. > -- > Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian > states. > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Ivan Trundle http://globallearning.com.au ivan at globallearning.com.au ph: +61 (0)2 6249 1344 mb: +61 (0)418 244 259 skype: callto://ivanovitchk From link at todd.inoz.com Sun Aug 19 22:05:51 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:05:51 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <200708191211.l7JCBK7d015021@ah.net> At 08:09 PM 19/08/2007, Howard Lowndes wrote: >Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with >Firefox 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a >hangup. I have the script blocker off. Child Support Agency, works fine Firefox 2.something on XP :) From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Mon Aug 20 07:03:50 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:03:50 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46C8B036.80102@ozemail.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with > Firefox 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a > hangup. I have the script blocker off. > > Dead as a doornail using Firefox 1.5 on Mac OSX. I find this really common, and would dearly love some way to diagnose such problems other than having other people test the site for me! RC From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Mon Aug 20 07:13:51 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:13:51 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> Ivan Trundle wrote: > Might have responded more quickly if you'd written > 'http://cas.gov.au', but never mind (the difference between a > clickable link or just a string of characters in my mail browser). > > It opens in Safari on Mac, but it's ugly, and the content isn't well > placed - a dud style sheet, for starters. In fact, no cross-browser > testing, by the look of it (different in Firefox and IE7). > > The site generates an internal server error at http://validator.w3.org/ > > It's a miracle that it parses at all for some browsers. Just goes to > show how tolerant browsers have to be. Since you mention browser tolerance, Ivan, I decided to test some of the "problem" sites that I often can't get open. www.smh.com.au: Failed validation, 263 errors. www.domain.com.au: Failed validation, 97 errors. www.telstra.com.au: Failed validation, 132 errors. As you say... > Overall, it's simply sloppy work all round, and whilst others might > declare that the site is fine and dandy from their perspective, one > look under the bonnet tells me that it's a Mickey Mouse (TM) job, with > a mishmash of coding from what looks like at least two different people. All too common! RC > > iT > > > On 19/08/2007, at 8:09 PM, Howard Lowndes wrote: > >> Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with >> Firefox 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a >> hangup. I have the script blocker off. >> >> >> -- >> Howard. >> LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people >> When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; >> When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. >> -- >> Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian >> states. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Link mailing list >> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au >> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link >> > > -- > Ivan Trundle > http://globallearning.com.au ivan at globallearning.com.au > ph: +61 (0)2 6249 1344 mb: +61 (0)418 244 259 > skype: callto://ivanovitchk > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > From ivan at itrundle.com Mon Aug 20 08:13:22 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 08:13:22 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <88819A26-4487-41B3-8720-F7BB21C9A2EC@itrundle.com> On 20/08/2007, at 7:13 AM, Richard Chirgwin wrote: > Ivan Trundle wrote: >> Might have responded more quickly if you'd written 'http:// >> cas.gov.au', but never mind (the difference between a clickable >> link or just a string of characters in my mail browser). >> >> It opens in Safari on Mac, but it's ugly, and the content isn't >> well placed - a dud style sheet, for starters. In fact, no cross- >> browser testing, by the look of it (different in Firefox and IE7). >> >> The site generates an internal server error at http:// >> validator.w3.org/ >> >> It's a miracle that it parses at all for some browsers. Just goes >> to show how tolerant browsers have to be. > Since you mention browser tolerance, Ivan, I decided to test some > of the "problem" sites that I often can't get open. > > www.smh.com.au: Failed validation, 263 errors. > www.domain.com.au: Failed validation, 97 errors. > www.telstra.com.au: Failed validation, 132 errors. True enough, but validation is not an end to itself. There was a time when I believed that validation was the key to making good websites, but it merely expresses the notion that the code is proper, not that the site works: and I'll ignore content for a moment. Difficulties still persist in how an errant quote mark (as an example) is likely to be interpreted by all browsers, and there is little contemporary research to show how browsers are likely to handle bad code - it's a case of letting the users discover this for themselves. My main point, here, is that I am full of admiration for the developers who code browser software, and what they do to allow browser applications render poor websites. > > As you say... >> Overall, it's simply sloppy work all round, and whilst others >> might declare that the site is fine and dandy from their >> perspective, one look under the bonnet tells me that it's a Mickey >> Mouse (TM) job, with a mishmash of coding from what looks like at >> least two different people. > All too common! The worst part of this (and it's pretty clear that more than one person has coded the site in question) is that no policies exist to ensure that code is at least uniform, or built using the same tools. This can only lead to bigger problems down the track. iT > > RC >> >> iT >> >> >> On 19/08/2007, at 8:09 PM, Howard Lowndes wrote: >> >>> Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with >>> Firefox 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a >>> hangup. I have the script blocker off. >>> -- Ivan Trundle http://globallearning.com.au ivan at globallearning.com.au ph: +61 (0)2 6249 1344 mb: +61 (0)418 244 259 skype: callto://ivanovitchk From rick at praxis.com.au Mon Aug 20 09:20:43 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:20:43 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <88819A26-4487-41B3-8720-F7BB21C9A2EC@itrundle.com> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> <88819A26-4487-41B3-8720-F7BB21C9A2EC@itrundle.com> Message-ID: <46C8D04B.3020805@praxis.com.au> Ivan Trundle wrote: > The worst part of this (and it's pretty clear that more than one person > has coded the site in question) is that no policies exist to ensure that > code is at least uniform, or built using the same tools. This can only > lead to bigger problems down the track. You're not wrong. Of course this problem should go away if XHTML became the lingua franca since XML should not accepted by an application unless it is well formed. That's the XML policy. Unfortunately web browsers do not enforce this policy and do accept crap XHTML. cheers rickw From ivan at itrundle.com Mon Aug 20 09:43:20 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:43:20 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C8D04B.3020805@praxis.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> <88819A26-4487-41B3-8720-F7BB21C9A2EC@itrundle.com> <46C8D04B.3020805@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: On 20/08/2007, at 9:20 AM, Rick Welykochy wrote: > Of course this problem should go away if XHTML became the lingua > franca > since XML should not accepted by an application unless it is well > formed. > That's the XML policy. > > Unfortunately web browsers do not enforce this policy and do accept > crap XHTML. Now wouldn't *that* be an interesting dilemma? If browser developers enforced the policy, then people would be quickly annoyed by poor coding, but who would they blame? And would they just switch to another browser that worked, instead? So we have a situation where browser developers are trying to accommodate poor coding so that their product is well-used (and liked), whilst shifting the responsibility to the website coders, who are under no compulsion to write better code, or check it after every revision. Meanwhile, the gatekeepers of XML shake their collective heads and say 'We warned you that this would happen...' iT In times of anarchy one may seem a despot in order to be a saviour. - Marquis de Mirabeau, Victor de Riquetti From eleanor at pacific.net.au Mon Aug 20 09:44:27 2007 From: eleanor at pacific.net.au (Eleanor Lister) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:44:27 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C8D04B.3020805@praxis.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> <88819A26-4487-41B3-8720-F7BB21C9A2EC@itrundle.com> <46C8D04B.3020805@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <46C8D5DB.4050102@pacific.net.au> Rick Welykochy wrote: > Ivan Trundle wrote: > >> The worst part of this (and it's pretty clear that more than one >> person has coded the site in question) is that no policies exist to >> ensure that code is at least uniform, or built using the same tools. >> This can only lead to bigger problems down the track. > > You're not wrong. > > Of course this problem should go away if XHTML became the lingua franca > since XML should not accepted by an application unless it is well formed. > That's the XML policy. > > Unfortunately web browsers do not enforce this policy and do accept > crap XHTML. well, we all understand why the browser makers do that, and if i made browser(s) i would too, of course, gotta render as many pages as possible, so as not to piss off the customers ... but it's really not too bad. the point of standards here is not to act as a straightjacket forbidding other practice, but to define a common subset of actual practice that is guaranteed to perform in a particular way on all leading browsers - this is useful! so standards do cause best practice to flourish, and the automated page production software can be updated to produce standards compliant code. of course there's no defence against excessive egotism or plain old fashioned stupidity. ;) regards, EL ------------ Eleanor Ashley Lister South Sydney Greens http://ssg.nsw.greens.org.au webmistress at ssg.nsw.greens.org.au From rick at praxis.com.au Mon Aug 20 10:04:31 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:04:31 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> <88819A26-4487-41B3-8720-F7BB21C9A2EC@itrundle.com> <46C8D04B.3020805@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <46C8DA8F.80105@praxis.com.au> Ivan Trundle wrote: > > On 20/08/2007, at 9:20 AM, Rick Welykochy wrote: > >> Of course this problem should go away if XHTML became the lingua franca >> since XML should not accepted by an application unless it is well formed. >> That's the XML policy. >> >> Unfortunately web browsers do not enforce this policy and do accept >> crap XHTML. > > Now wouldn't *that* be an interesting dilemma? > > If browser developers enforced the policy, then people would be quickly > annoyed by poor coding, but who would they blame? And would they just > switch to another browser that worked, instead? I would hope that if XHTML was enforced by the browser, then the a website would never see the light of day until it passes testing. Surely the web developer would be forced into fixing broken XHTML code *before* it sees the light of the Internet. Of course, it is apparent to me that many sites are not even proofed properly and a lot of bugs get through, especially in CGI applications. It's not rocket surgery, but in the main it's not done properly. There is one area that computers are completely and utterly unforgiving and the user does get annoyed: addressing and other terminal exceptions that occur because of bad software coding, i.e. the dreaded Blue Screen of Death on Windows, the total freeze on *nix (Mac, Linux, Unix) systems. Yes, the latter do happen. 'Twould the same apply to crap coded websites ;) cheers rickw From marghanita at ramin.com.au Mon Aug 20 10:18:32 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:18:32 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C8DA8F.80105@praxis.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> <88819A26-4487-41B3-8720-F7BB21C9A2EC@itrundle.com> <46C8D04B.3020805@praxis.com.au> <46C8DA8F.80105@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <46C8DDD8.2010808@ramin.com.au> In Linux/Iceweazel seems to be "transferring data from csa.gov.au for an awfully long time. I did let it set a cookie - when it asked. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From rick at praxis.com.au Mon Aug 20 10:30:10 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:30:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C8D5DB.4050102@pacific.net.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> <46C8B28F.3010701@ozemail.com.au> <88819A26-4487-41B3-8720-F7BB21C9A2EC@itrundle.com> <46C8D04B.3020805@praxis.com.au> <46C8D5DB.4050102@pacific.net.au> Message-ID: <46C8E092.30605@praxis.com.au> Eleanor Lister wrote: > but it's really not too bad. the point of standards here is not to act > as a straightjacket forbidding other practice, but to define a common > subset of actual practice that is guaranteed to perform in a particular > way on all leading browsers - this is useful! > > so standards do cause best practice to flourish, and the automated page > production software can be updated to produce standards compliant code. Heh ... I challenge you to implement TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP or any of a myriad of Internet protocols by not conforming to the straightjacket of the standard. A case in point. Microsoft's Exchange (email) server kinda implements SMTP and POP3, but none too well. This causes no end of frustration and problems when you connect the damn thing to the Internet. There are countless other examples of near compliance to standards. I do agree that there is an acceptance of the concept of "graceful degradation" where web browser rendering is concerned which does make HTML (XHTML) less of a straightjacket than most other standards. This allows browsers that range from text only (links,etc) through to mobile (WAP) and fully featured bloatware all to do roughly the same job: get the message to the user via the web, even with the most badly coded markup. I grudgingly do accept that the web would not be as popular and in such widespread use today if the HTML standard was not so loosely and forgivingly interpreted by browser technology. The situation simply goes against everything I have learnt and deploy in computing. cheers rickw From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Sat Aug 18 06:59:13 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 06:59:13 +1000 Subject: [LINK] mobile phone video In-Reply-To: <200708171547.l7HFlwND022429@ah.net> References: <20070816153541.7ED8817074@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <200708171547.l7HFlwND022429@ah.net> Message-ID: <20070820004724.6A46D3800@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> At 01:43 AM 18/08/2007, Adam Todd wrote: >At 01:35 AM 17/08/2007, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >>So, apparently the Federal Government is going to auction-off some (all?) >>of the analog TV spectrum for mobile phones. (DVB-H) ... > >Does this mean another round of new Mobile phones? ... Yes, but I doubt that anyone will want to pay what such a phone will cost. DVB-H will do very little, as it is a sort of one way wireless network which is limited to being used for one application: digital video. The government has had enough trouble trying to get anyone to use a datacasting service. It would be better if the spectrum was made available for more useful purposes. 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 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Mon Aug 20 10:46:54 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:46:54 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum Message-ID: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Standards Australia issued notes from the 9 August 2007 forum about the proposal to make OOXML (DIS 29500) an international standard. With more than a little irony, the document was circulated as a Microsoft Word document (".DOC") embedded in a Microsoft Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (".DAT"). For those who did not receive the message, or were unable to read it due to the formats used, I have transcribed some excerpts at: . 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 From lucychili at gmail.com Mon Aug 20 12:00:54 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:30:54 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum In-Reply-To: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> References: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: On 8/20/07, Tom Worthington wrote: > Standards Australia issued notes from the 9 August 2007 forum about > the proposal to make OOXML (DIS 29500) an international standard. > With more than a little irony, the document was circulated as a > Microsoft Word document (".DOC") embedded in a Microsoft Transport > Neutral Encapsulation Format (".DAT"). > > For those who did not receive the message, or were unable to read it > due to the formats used, I have transcribed some excerpts at: > . Thanks Tom Ironies indeed. I also hardly recognised the meeting. Perhaps those are 'standard minutes' Janet From brendansweb at optusnet.com.au Mon Aug 20 12:18:54 2007 From: brendansweb at optusnet.com.au (Brendan Scott) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:18:54 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum In-Reply-To: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> References: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <46C8FA0E.7030101@optusnet.com.au> Noes? Freudian slip? Tom Worthington wrote: > Standards Australia issued notes from the 9 August 2007 forum about the > proposal to make OOXML (DIS 29500) an international standard. With more > than a little irony, the document was circulated as a Microsoft Word > document (".DOC") embedded in a Microsoft Transport Neutral > Encapsulation Format (".DAT"). > > For those who did not receive the message, or were unable to read it due > to the formats used, I have transcribed some excerpts at: > . From link at todd.inoz.com Mon Aug 20 12:37:55 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:37:55 +1000 Subject: [LINK] mobile phone video In-Reply-To: <20070820004724.6A46D3800@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> References: <20070816153541.7ED8817074@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <200708171547.l7HFlwND022429@ah.net> <20070820004724.6A46D3800@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <200708200251.l7K2paoK029657@ah.net> At 06:59 AM 18/08/2007, Tom Worthington wrote: >At 01:43 AM 18/08/2007, Adam Todd wrote: >>At 01:35 AM 17/08/2007, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >>>So, apparently the Federal Government is going to auction-off some (all?) >>>of the analog TV spectrum for mobile phones. (DVB-H) ... >> >>Does this mean another round of new Mobile phones? ... > >Yes, but I doubt that anyone will want to pay what such a phone will >cost. DVB-H will do very little, as it is a sort of one way wireless >network which is limited to being used for one application: digital video. I suppose for those who are in mobile homes and on the road, a 7" wide screen TV and a radio/dvd/tv/DVB-H receiver might be pretty cool. You could hook up your mobile to an external display and watch TV :) Um. >The government has had enough trouble trying to get anyone to use a >datacasting service. It would be better if the spectrum was made >available for more useful purposes. Yeah. I kinda think so, can't see myself driving around town watching TV :) From stephen at melbpc.org.au Mon Aug 20 13:01:14 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:01:14 GMT Subject: [LINK] Ultranet .. request for tender Message-ID: <20070820030114.DEF6E169EF@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> An ICT person at a Victorian school writes: We are already using a colloborative, intuitive e-learning system that is under constant development and improvement. We use it for VELS and VCE courses. It is free, open source and can be tailored to local needs. It is written in PHP and uses a free backend database. It is called Moodle. Does the state need to spend $M60 to implement an untried alternative? http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/ultranet/ "The Ultranet will fundamentally change Victorian government school education by linking whole school communities, parents, students and teachers, enabling them to collaborate to improve student learning outcomes in a way not previously possible. It will bring together the key processes involved in the day-to-day running of a school and a classroom, and become an indispensable part of school practice and culture." http://www.tenders.vic.gov.au The Department of Education is aware that some schools are using learning management systems such as Moodle. Please refer to section 8.1.20 of the Request for Tender specifications below: 8.1.20 Learning Management Systems A few Victorian government schools have made investments in third party learning management solutions. Solutions include (but are not limited to) Edumate, My Classes, Scholaris, Studywiz, Moodle, Blackboard and other custom developed intranet solutions. The solutions are implemented within schools' curriculum network environment. DoE is in the process of conducting an extensive survey of existing applications in use at schools to assist in formulating the data conversion and change management strategies. Learning management systems, however, are only one component of the Ultranet. The other components include: Strategy Learning and Teaching Management Administration Collaboration Student Information Staff Information School Information Reporting Productivity Tools Architecture Security Standards Change Management Development and Implementation Service Hosting, Operational Support and Maintenance The Ultranet Request for Tender was released publicly on 1 August 2007. You can the Ultranet RFT from the Victorian Government Tenders web site at www.tenders.vic.gov.au -- Cheers, people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From gdt at gdt.id.au Mon Aug 20 14:51:05 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:21:05 +0930 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney In-Reply-To: <102669.53057.qm@web50502.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <102669.53057.qm@web50502.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1187585465.12305.10.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 21:53 -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > A question about your comment on the cutting off the major domain with no notice Hi David, Lack of *effective* notice. That is, only e-mails that look like spam. No paper invoice, no phone call. Just cut off. The most notorious being the expiration of mq.edu.au -- two day outage. Obviously Macquarie Uni were keen on paying once they had realised that the domain expired, but there was no after-hours or weekend support to allow them to do so. The automated system was happy to email a new password to the domain holder, but without mq.edu.au resolving that wasn't going to work. I've no idea why, if there was no after hours support, domain expiry was even scheduled for a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I'll note that AARNet gets spanked for a five minute outage. The DNS operations needs to catch up, even if this leads to a dual-tier pricing scheme in some domains. Cheers, Glen. From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Mon Aug 20 16:19:05 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:19:05 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Fibre to the Home: A Real Project Message-ID: In 2006, MultiMedia Vic and VicUrban ran a project to get fibre into a new housing development area in Whittlesea (SE corner of Melbourne, along the Bay). Given the considerable interest on link in FTTN and FTTH, I'm surprised that I don't recall any previous mention of it on the list. (Apologies in advance if I've failed to read the archives properly!). The site is at: http://www.mmv.vic.gov.au/NewsAuroraAWiredNewWorldinHousingDevelopment2October2006?searchTerms[]=Aurora The 2-page Fact Sheet is interesting: http://www.mmv.vic.gov.au/uploads/downloads/BAO/aurorafactsheet.pdf Robin Eckermann's 30-page report is highly readable and informative, e.g. fully-costed FTTH at maybe 60% more than Telstra's cost of new copper to homes on a greenfields site. I have a hard-copy, but can't see the PDF on the MMV web-site. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From gdt at gdt.id.au Mon Aug 20 20:55:54 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:25:54 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum In-Reply-To: References: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <1187607354.3507.15.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Mon, 2007-08-20 Janet Hawtin wrote: > I also hardly recognised the meeting. > Perhaps those are 'standard minutes' Hi Janet, The minutes reflect what the author intended -- that Standards Australia consulted with "the community" and all views were aired and considered by Standards Australia. What they don't record is the actual argument. This leads me to suspect that evaluating the arguments is of no interest to Standards Australia. That is of concern because it is the severity of the comments which should determine "approve" (with editorial comments fixing typos and ambiguities) or "disapprove" (with substantive comments that if successfully addressed in the Ballot Resolution Meeting lead to an "approve" vote). My belief is that Standards Australia has already determined to vote "approve, with comments" -- effectively "publish as is, ignore the comments". Standards Australia is not an arm of government, so there is no mechanism such as a Freedom of Information request which can prove or disprove my belief. Cheers, Glen From lucychili at gmail.com Mon Aug 20 22:27:38 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:57:38 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum In-Reply-To: <1187607354.3507.15.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> <1187607354.3507.15.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: On 8/20/07, Glen Turner wrote: > My belief is that Standards Australia has already determined to vote > "approve, with comments" -- effectively "publish as is, ignore the > comments". > > Standards Australia is not an arm of government, so there is no > mechanism such as a Freedom of Information request which can prove > or disprove my belief. How does the memorandum of understanding between the Commonwealth and Standards Australia work? Surely with all such processes and agreements there must be a way to evaluate whether the implementation is structured in the national interest? Janet From link at todd.inoz.com Tue Aug 21 01:49:42 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 01:49:42 +1000 Subject: [LINK] ACCC not the only one suing for Deceptive Ads on Google Message-ID: <200708201549.l7KFnnEc021768@ah.net> http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/american-airlines-sues-google/2007/08/20/1187462148891.html American Airlines sues Google August 20, 2007 - 2:31PM American Airlines, the world's largest airline, is seeking damages from internet search leader Google for selling search words involving its name. The dispute relates to Google's practice of selling search terms such as "American Airlines" or "AA.com" to other companies for advertising. American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp, said it does not want to prevent the display of search terms, but wants Google to stop selling its trademarks and related terms. "We are seeking relief for the damages such practices are creating," the company said in a statement. It didn't estimate the amount of damages. Google believes its on solid ground. "We are confident that our trademark policy strikes a proper balance between trademark owners' interests and consumer choice, and that our position has been validated by decisions in previous trademark cases," Google said in a statement. From kim at cynosure.com.au Tue Aug 21 02:53:32 2007 From: kim at cynosure.com.au (Kim Davies) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:53:32 +0000 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney In-Reply-To: <1187585465.12305.10.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <102669.53057.qm@web50502.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <1187585465.12305.10.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <20070820165332.GA8589@malaria> Quoting Glen Turner on Monday August 20, 2007: | | Lack of *effective* notice. That is, only e-mails that look like spam. | No paper invoice, no phone call. Just cut off. I think the idea of opting in for such notices would be a good value added service for some registrars to offer. For clients who rely on their domain, I am sure they would pay some extra for the peace of mind to know that they would be contacted in such a manner. However in the domain business, where the churn can be literally millions of adds and deletes a day, I don't see how this is scalable for all domains. | The most notorious being the expiration of mq.edu.au -- two day outage. The .edu.au domain is managed by the education sector, rather than auDA, as far as I am aware. auDA's website says it is managed by AICTEC (http://www.aictec.edu.au/). I imagine they are responsible for the policies with respect to notices, etc. | I'll note that AARNet gets spanked for a five minute outage. The | DNS operations needs to catch up, even if this leads to a dual-tier | pricing scheme in some domains. The DNS needs to be unquestionably "always on", and at the core registry level it should provide predictable service in a fully automated manner. The registry-registrar model is predicated on the idea that multiple registrars will compete on price and service. I believe AICTEC has decided only to have a single registrar for .edu.au (called education.au) so there is no competition in service. The registry operator is AusRegistry (the same registry provider used for .com.au and some others), but that is through the choice of the managers of .edu.au and they could use another registry operation if they desired. kim From kim.holburn at gmail.com Tue Aug 21 06:11:50 2007 From: kim.holburn at gmail.com (Kim Holburn) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:11:50 +0200 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: <228570A9-B482-4AC0-ACFB-F72FDF936F1A@itrundle.com> References: <228570A9-B482-4AC0-ACFB-F72FDF936F1A@itrundle.com> Message-ID: <49D06833-36BF-46E2-A5A1-6F34903D266B@gmail.com> He he!! It was caused by --- millions of windows systems all patching and rebooting at the same time: Windows strikes again. On 2007/Aug/16, at 11:56 PM, Ivan Trundle wrote: > Obviously not ready for prime-time stuff. My household experienced > a brown-out and then a black-out last night, and upon recovery, > Skype wouldn't login. I thought that it might have been related, > until I read this: > > "UPDATED 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging into > Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it?s a software > issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. > Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as > soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize > for the inconvenience. > Additionally, downloads of Skype have been temporarily disabled. We > will make downloads available again as quickly as possible." > > Notably, the stock price of eBay went down on this announcement > (i.e., it's serious - eBay owns Skype). > > (I updated my Skype yesterday with a new beta - what a big snafu.) > > iT > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link -- Kim Holburn IT Network & Security Consultant Ph: +39 06 855 4294 M: +39 3494957443 mailto:kim at holburn.net aim://kimholburn skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny. -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961 From stil at stilgherrian.com Tue Aug 21 07:43:37 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:43:37 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: <49D06833-36BF-46E2-A5A1-6F34903D266B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 21/8/07 6:11 AM, "Kim Holburn" wrote: > He he!! It was caused by --- millions of windows systems all > patching and rebooting at the same time: > reboot-windows-update-smokes-skype.html> > what_happened_on_august_16.html> > > Windows strikes again. Erm, while this does put me in the unlikely position of defending Microsoft... Microsoft Tuesday, with "millions of windows systems all patching and rebooting at the same time", happens every month. It's not a secret. So Skype's login logs would show this, presumably, if they'd looked. And their new system should have taken it into account if they'd have thought of it. OK, obviously they didn't think of it. Big oops. But now they know. Blaming only Microsoft, only one endpoint of the network connection, seems unfair and perhaps propagandistic. If it happens again, to *any* major software provider, *then* we can point and laugh and say "You tossers, you didn't learn from History, did you!" Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From ivan at itrundle.com Tue Aug 21 08:25:12 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:25:12 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Skype and VoIP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41F41B74-3175-4479-A61F-6A715510FB8C@itrundle.com> On 21/08/2007, at 7:43 AM, Stilgherrian wrote: > On 21/8/07 6:11 AM, "Kim Holburn" wrote: >> He he!! It was caused by --- millions of windows systems all >> patching and rebooting at the same time: >> > reboot-windows-update-smokes-skype.html> >> > what_happened_on_august_16.html> >> >> Windows strikes again. > > Erm, while this does put me in the unlikely position of defending > Microsoft... Ditto - it's odd for a software company to one the one hand declare that it found a bug (serious enough to cause an outage) in its own algorithms, but to blame another company for precipitating the event. I'm not sure that Skype should have been able to predict how the patch Tuesday event would have affected their system, but nonetheless, it was *their* code which was faulty. iT > > Microsoft Tuesday, with "millions of windows systems all patching and > rebooting at the same time", happens every month. It's not a > secret. So > Skype's login logs would show this, presumably, if they'd looked. > And their > new system should have taken it into account if they'd have thought > of it. > > OK, obviously they didn't think of it. Big oops. But now they know. > > Blaming only Microsoft, only one endpoint of the network > connection, seems > unfair and perhaps propagandistic. > > If it happens again, to *any* major software provider, *then* we > can point > and laugh and say "You tossers, you didn't learn from History, did > you!" > > Stil -- Ivan Trundle http://globallearning.com.au ivan at globallearning.com.au ph: +61 (0)2 6249 1344 mb: +61 (0)418 244 259 skype: callto://ivanovitchk From brd at iimetro.com.au Tue Aug 21 09:09:53 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:09:53 +0800 Subject: [LINK] FVTS Message-ID: <24973.1187651393@iimetro.com.au> Moving on from FTTN and FTTH, we get Fibre via the Sewer University taps sewers for web access By Clement James itNews 20 August 2007 10:01PM http://itnews.com.au/News/59429,university-taps-sewers-for-web-access.aspx A web connection via the toilet bowl may sound like Google's most recent April Fool, but the University of Aberdeen plans to welcome students back with a high bandwidth internet network connected via the sewers. The university tapped H2O Networks to provide a high capacity link for the next 10 years, enabling students to access the internet from their halls of residence. H2O Networks is a deploying dark fibre in the UK's waste water network to enable connectivity to those who have limited access. The network is known as 'fibre via the sewer'. Garry Wardrope, network services manager at the University of Aberdeen, said: "Making university life as rich as possible for our students is the main aim of everything we do. "When embarking on our 'internet to room' project we wanted a cost-effective method that would offer the kind of bandwidth students demand when researching for course projects or writing their dissertations." As existing networks become increasingly congested with more cable types, it has become difficult for network companies to find new pathways. The H2O Networks development allows universities to use the sewers to set up their own secure IT and telecoms network, rather than the traditional disruptive method of digging up roads. The deployment process is a least 80 percent faster than traditional methods, resulting in operational networks within weeks rather than months. Every city and town has ready-made ducts that can be used without causing disruption, the company said. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Mon Aug 20 17:55:49 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:55:49 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum In-Reply-To: <46C916B0.1070205@lannet.com.au> References: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> <46C916B0.1070205@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070820232907.72CF210EF1@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 02:21 PM 20/08/2007, Howard Lowndes wrote: >I don't believe that these notes should be accepted with a "touch of >irony". I believe SA should be seriously and severely castigated for >not using one of their own published standards ... I have tried that approach in the past and have found it ineffective. A little gentle mocking seems to work better. >... I'm surprised that they didn't publish them using Office 2007, >just to demonstrate how biased they really are. I do not believe that Standards Australia are biased in favour of Microsoft. The standards people make standards in a vast range of areas and can't be experts in the details. It is up to the experts on the committees to advise on what is a good standard and what is not. It does not good to shout abuse at the standards administrators about the technical details of a topic they do not understand. Also keep in mind that international standards are not made by the more open, free process used for Internet standards. ISO standards are made by small closed committees of vested interests, copies of the standards are sold for money and standards can use patented technology where a licence fee is charged for use. In that context the process for OOXML is relatively free and open. You can't blame SA staff for following their set down procedures. If you don't like the way such standards are made, then what is needed is for those procedures to be changed, or for other bodies with different procedures to be used for making standards. The easiest way I can see to do this is the same "fast track" process being used for OOXML. With this some other body prepares a draft using their own process and then puts it up, completed, to be a standard. That body can use a freer process and make its draft freely available. SA, ISO and other standards bodies can then endorse it officially and sell their official version of the standard. Most people will use the free unofficial version of the standard, a few governments and large companies will buy enough copies of the official standards to keep the official standards bodies going and so everyone will be happy. At least that is what I suggested to Standards Australia, last week . ps: My comments to SA on the OOXML standard (not the standards process) are at: . 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 From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Tue Aug 21 10:16:49 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:16:49 +1000 Subject: [LINK] FVTS In-Reply-To: <24973.1187651393@iimetro.com.au> References: <24973.1187651393@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: At 7:09 +0800 21/8/07, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: >Moving on from FTTN and FTTH, we get Fibre via the Sewer ... aka brown fibre? (And this the day after 'Kenny' was on Denton). >Garry Wardrope, network services manager at the University of >Aberdeen, said: "Making university life as rich as possible for our >students is the main aim of everything we do. >"When embarking on our 'internet to room' project we wanted a >cost-effective method that would offer the kind of bandwidth >students demand when researching for course projects or writing >their dissertations." This is clearly a pseudo-quote put into a media release by a marketing person. IT services people in universities know what students *really* use bandwidth for, and that isn't it. More seriously, I saw mention recently of someone being in negotiation with Vic Railways to use their long strips of land to carry fibre. Again. That idea was alive back when I ran LAN conferences in the mid-1980s. I didn't track its demise, but assume that telecomms de-regulation moved too little and too slowly, and/or that rail bureaucracy turned out to be an even bigger hurdle than people originally thought. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From marghanita at ramin.com.au Tue Aug 21 11:15:10 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:15:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] FVTS In-Reply-To: References: <24973.1187651393@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46CA3C9E.5090408@ramin.com.au> Roger Clarke wrote: > At 7:09 +0800 21/8/07, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: >> Moving on from FTTN and FTTH, we get Fibre via the Sewer ... > > aka brown fibre > More seriously, I saw mention recently of someone being in negotiation > with Vic Railways to use their long strips of land to carry fibre. > I think it is the use of the railway's fibre, not just the land. "Broadband technology is providing these solutions and teachers and students are not wasting time by having to wait for a computer to download information. Earlier this year the New South Wales Government was able to provide a broadband connection to Muswellbrook High School by connecting into the fibre optic cable running alongside our rail lines. We ran similar pilots in nine schools throughout the State and the result was that Internet download times were up to 20 times faster. For example, at one school, data that previously took 20 minutes to download now takes only about one minute?an extraordinary increase in capacity. Now that Muswellbrook High School is connected to broadband through our State-owned cable, it is investigating Internet video streaming in the classroom, which will be a great facility." "Fibre Optic Network - EOI. 15. 2.6.5 Other regional rail corridors, including to the State borders. Map 7 shows all the regional rail corridors in Victoria. ..." Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From gdt at gdt.id.au Tue Aug 21 12:56:57 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:26:57 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum In-Reply-To: <20070820232907.72CF210EF1@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> References: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> <46C916B0.1070205@lannet.com.au> <20070820232907.72CF210EF1@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <1187665017.3264.73.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 17:55 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote: > I do not believe that Standards Australia are biased in favour of > Microsoft. The standards people make standards in a vast range of > areas and can't be experts in the details. It is up to the experts on > the committees to advise on what is a good standard and what is not. > It does not good to shout abuse at the standards administrators about > the technical details of a topic they do not understand. I have to disagree. The membership of IEEE or IETF or W3C would not tolerate an area chair or a working group chair that could not come to grips with the technical detail. In fact they are usually expected to be technical leaders in their field in addition to having the management skills needed of a committee chair. So why is the JTC1 committee of ISO's Australia National Body different? Standards Australia are a Participating Member, and this carries the implication that they should be able to perform the development and evaluation of technical computing standards. > Also keep in mind that international standards are not made by the > more open, free process used for Internet standards. ISO standards > are made by small closed committees of vested interests, copies of > the standards are sold for money and standards can use patented > technology where a licence fee is charged for use. In that context > the process for OOXML is relatively free and open. The MoU with the Commonwealth also requires Standards Australia to consider the national interest. ISO wasn't always a cozy little club, as you suggest. The development and introduction of metric measurements wasn't beneficial to vested interests, but served the wider community. Some of us hold ISO up to the principles of its past, not to its behaviour of its present. That is because we actually want to *use* the standards. > You can't blame SA staff for following their set down procedures. If > you don't like the way such standards are made, then what is needed > is for those procedures to be changed, or for other bodies with > different procedures to be used for making standards. The easiest way > I can see to do this is the same "fast track" process being used for > OOXML. With this some other body prepares a draft using their own > process and then puts it up, completed, to be a standard. That body > can use a freer process and make its draft freely available. SA, ISO > and other standards bodies can then endorse it officially and sell > their official version of the standard. Most people will use the free > unofficial version of the standard, a few governments and large > companies will buy enough copies of the official standards to keep > the official standards bodies going and so everyone will be happy. At > least that is what I suggested to Standards Australia, last week > . Have you *read* the OOXML specification. I've worked on three IEEE and IETF standards committees and not even our first drafts were this poor. But the Fast Track process has no way to prevent such a poor specification from becoming an international standard. The Fast Track process should be abolished. It only benefits one organisation -- ECMA International -- and that organisation's only purpose is to sell access to the ISO Fast Track. Go have a read of the ECMA website -- they are quite blatant about it. The Fast Track is bad for consumers. Both DVD-RW and DVD+RW became standards via the Fast Track from ECMA. Having two incompatible writable DVD standards was always going to be bad for consumers, but ECMA doesn't give a stuff about that. There is an alternative process -- the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) process. But even that let through a deficient specification for OpenDocument spreadsheet formulas and didn't evaluate OpenDocument for support for the disabled. So it has been plain for some time that ISO's procedures are deficient. I would have expected Standards Australia to be addressing those deficiencies themselves. This current farce sets ISO up for irrelevancy. If any vendor can make a specification an "international standard" but still prevent other vendors from making use of it via patents then what is the benefit of using a ISO standard? Some other specifications body -- approved by the international standards community or not -- will take on the role of developing specifications that people actually use when they want interoperability. The ISO has been here before --- with the IETF and OSI. It is walking down the same road again with IT specifications and the free software movement. Microsoft will do want it pleases -- standards or not. Just as IBM once did with data communications (anyone remember the increasingly frantic modifications to SNA to keep pace with the functions provided by the Internet specifications?) It is not even plain that if a ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting alters OOXML that Microsoft will implement the altered specification in Office. Again, this occured with IBM data communications -- IBM continued to run SDLC rather than the ISO's HDLC which was ISO's modication to the SDLC specification. In the free software movement ISO has a group of people that use standards as the key to interoperability between groups of disparate developers. If ISO have a good standard in the field then that standard will be used by free software developers. ISO are currently doing their level best to ensure that the free software community invents its own standards body. Cheers, Glen PS: My completed submission to Standards Australia on OOXML is available from From gdt at gdt.id.au Tue Aug 21 13:01:52 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:31:52 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum In-Reply-To: References: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> <1187607354.3507.15.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <1187665312.3264.79.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 21:57 +0930, Janet Hawtin wrote: > How does the memorandum of understanding between the Commonwealth and > Standards Australia work? Surely with all such processes and > agreements there must be a way to evaluate whether the implementation > is structured in the national interest? No idea. But really, it's long time that Standards Australia was hauled before a parliament committee and asked to explain its actions with regard to technology specifications. This is simply a new low; the problem has existed for a long time. I suppose that all starts by interesting a member of parliament (writes Glen, displaying his complete ignorance of the political process). Any ideas who we could interest? We really need someone who can guide us as much as take up the cause. From wavey_one at yahoo.com Tue Aug 21 13:07:59 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:07:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] American's monitoring of international internet traffic Message-ID: <190298.71357.qm@web50511.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi all, I've not seen any discussion of this here (maybe I delete too many messages sometimes), but the US has just introduced the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which has implications for basically anyone who uses the internet around the world as The Observer article below notes. There is more coverage of this under government at http://technewsreview.com.au/ Cheers David Terror law puts Britons at risk of surveillance by US agents A new law swept through Congress by the US government before the summer recess is to give American security agencies unprecedented powers to spy on British citizens without a warrant. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was approved by Congress earlier this month to help the National Security Agency in the fight against terrorism. But it has now emerged that the bill gives the security services powers to intercept all telephone calls, internet traffic and emails made by British citizens across US-based networks. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2151854,00.html ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sick of deleting your inbox? Yahoo!7 Mail has free unlimited storage. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From wavey_one at yahoo.com Tue Aug 21 13:10:45 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:10:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] ACMA & Communications Alliance - Communications Consumer Dialogue 2007 Message-ID: <69906.54408.qm@web50512.mail.re2.yahoo.com> For anyone in Sydney tomorrow (Wednesday), you might be interested in this: ACMA & Communications Alliance - Communications Consumer Dialogue 2007. The blurb says: Discover the future for the consumer! How will consumers gain the benefits that future communication technologies will provide? Join representatives from consumer groups and those interested in discovering the likely impact of future communication technologies on consumers. The Communications Consumer Dialogue will focus on how Australia will achieve equitable access. About the Event The Communications Consumer Dialogue 2007 is designed to be an interactive forum between the audience and speakers. The Dialogue will focus on how Australia will achieve equitable access and is intended to be forward-looking, with a view to the opportunities which future technologies present for all consumers. The expertise of Jenny Brockie in facilitating and moderating group interactions will ensure that the Dialogue includes interactive and energetic discussions between all participants - panel members, attendees and moderator. For more information see http://slatteryit.com.au/congress/ Cheers David Program 9.30am Registration ? Tea and Coffee 10.00am Keynote Address - Empowering and protecting consumers in communications markets The fast paced nature of telecommunications markets provides us with the challenge of re-evaluating our approaches to ensure consumers can drive competition and reap the resulting benefits; while ensuring that people are in a position to assert their market rights. Louise will explore emerging thinking in this area and some new approaches to these issues. Speaker: Louise Sylvan, Deputy Chair, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) 10.45am Morning Tea 11.00am What Technologies are on the Horizon? Our esteemed panel will provide an overview of the technologies that are likely to be adopted in the future and how consumers could use these technologies. Speakers: Laurel Papworth, Online Communities Strategist, World Communities; Mark Pesce, Writer, Inventor and Researcher; Michael McLeod, CEO, Message Stick Communications 12.15pm Lunch 1.00pm How will future technologies assist with accessibility? Our expert panel will look at how accessibility will improve with new technologies. How will future technologies help with the challenges faced by the people with disabilities, older Australians and the rural consumer? Speakers: Graeme Innes, Federal Disability Discrimination Commissioner, HREOC; Alex Varley, CEO, Media Access Australia; Tim Noonan, Company Director & Principal Consultant, Tim Noonan Consulting; Dr Christopher Newell, Associate Professor, School of Medicine, University of Tasmania 2.15pm Afternoon Tea 2.30pm Empowering Consumers ? The Way Forward The panel will address possible scenarios and solutions for enabling consumers to fully participate in the digital age. Join our thought-provoking panel as they outline the possible future policy initiatives, creative strategies and future goals. Speakers: Mara Bun, Head of Research, CANNEX; Chris Cheah, Member, Australian Communications and Media Authority; Teresa Corbin, Chief Executive Officer, CTN 4.00pm Close - Drinks and Networking ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get the World's number 1 free email service. http://mail.yahoo.com.au From gdt at gdt.id.au Tue Aug 21 13:45:01 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:15:01 +0930 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney In-Reply-To: <20070820165332.GA8589@malaria> References: <102669.53057.qm@web50502.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <1187585465.12305.10.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> <20070820165332.GA8589@malaria> Message-ID: <1187667901.3264.100.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 16:53 +0000, Kim Davies wrote: > | The most notorious being the expiration of mq.edu.au -- two day outage. > > The .edu.au domain is managed by the education sector, rather than > auDA, as far as I am aware. auDA's website says it is managed by AICTEC > (http://www.aictec.edu.au/). I imagine they are responsible for the > policies with respect to notices, etc. As you might be able to guess, they'll be hearing from me. I'm a very unhappy chappy. Twice the DNS has caused a major outage and that simply doesn't cut it. I don't even know why major .edu.au domains *have* expiry dates. I can't think of any scenario where you'd deliberately cut off tens of thousands of users. From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Tue Aug 21 13:49:53 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:49:53 +1000 Subject: [LINK] SMH: 'Medicare online' Message-ID: [Comments embedded and at the end] Medicare online The Sydney Morning Herald (*article* not online though) 21 August 2007 The federal Government will spend $25 million over three years developing electronic health records [sic!] that will allow consumers to view their Medicare rebates online and check how much they have spent on medication. "Patients will have secure access via the internet [sic] to a full record of their Medicare rebates", Health Minister Tony Abbott said yesterday. "Within 12 months there will be similar arrangements to allow online patients access to their (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) claims history". As part of the online health initiative, the Government would also roll out an electronic health record in remote indigenous towns to ensure the health problems of Aboriginal children were addressed. [sic - accessibility of a record is a mere fraction of what's needed to "ensure" health problems are addressed] [The conflation of health insurance with health care is a blatant misrepresentation. [The Medicare mandarins tried to bring you the Australia Card. They fought for years to get the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme as a step along the way to becoming the central health care database. They have an appalling record in relation to privacy (but fortunately also in relation to eBusiness), and shouldn't be let anywhere near genuine health care data. [The strangeness is confounded by the Health Minister announcing something that's squarely in the Human Services portfolio. My guess is that Medicare has applied for and got some funding out of the Health Dept that was earmarked for projects in the health care records area - but I stress that's an unresearched stab in the dark. My spare time is fully occupied chasing more important privacy-invasion rabbits down other holes.] [Note that a lot of Medicare data is '10-minute consultation' stuff. But some of it is tightly or moderately condition-specific and hence much more sensitive (e.g. D&C, visit to an STD clinic). [PBS data is dynamite from a privacy perspective, because the vast majority of prescribed pharmaceuticals these days are condition-specific, so much more is disclosed than just the prescription.] [Online authentication has been a graveyard for a decade, and doesn't look like improving anytime soon. So it doesn't take a very clever person to predict that there will be some very serious problems with these projects. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From marghanita at ramin.com.au Tue Aug 21 13:56:12 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:56:12 +1000 Subject: [LINK] American's monitoring of international internet traffic In-Reply-To: <190298.71357.qm@web50511.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <190298.71357.qm@web50511.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <46CA625C.1020103@ramin.com.au> Old news.... m David Goldstein wrote: > Hi all, > > I've not seen any discussion of this here (maybe I delete too many messages sometimes), but the US has just introduced the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which has implications for basically anyone who uses the internet around the world as The Observer article below notes. > > There is more coverage of this under government at http://technewsreview.com.au/ > > Cheers > David > > Terror law puts Britons at risk of surveillance by US agents > A new law swept through Congress by the US government before the summer recess is to give American security agencies unprecedented powers to spy on British citizens without a warrant. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was approved by Congress earlier this month to help the National Security Agency in the fight against terrorism. But it has now emerged that the bill gives the security services powers to intercept all telephone calls, internet traffic and emails made by British citizens across US-based networks. > http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2151854,00.html > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Sick of deleting your inbox? Yahoo!7 Mail has free unlimited storage. > http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html > > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: 0414 869202 From gdt at gdt.id.au Tue Aug 21 14:37:45 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:07:45 +0930 Subject: [LINK] FVTS In-Reply-To: References: <24973.1187651393@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <1187671065.3264.148.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> > This is clearly a pseudo-quote put into a media release by a > marketing person. IT services people in universities know what > students *really* use bandwidth for, and that isn't it. Service costs are set by the peak usage. US universities will be billed at "95th percentile" -- with their traffic profile that is the usage at about 3pm. As long as dorm usage doesn't come close to the 3pm peak, it is essentially free traffic and the dominant cost of Internet provision to dorms is the capital costs of the cabling. This goes a long way to explain the blase attitude of US universities to dorm Internet usage. The panic over P2P was that this traffic was becoming higher than the 3pm peak (as well as adding to the peak if dorm machines were left running during the day). That was fixed by rate limiting dorm usage to be less than the 3pm peak. The rate-limiting is done using equipment like Packeteer, some of these can do the peak calculations themselves and ensure that the dorms never add to the cost of the university's Internet service. The situation in Australia is different, as 95th percentile charging isn't common here. > More seriously, I saw mention recently of someone being in > negotiation with Vic Railways to use their long strips of land to > carry fibre. We do that in South Australia already. It's not as convenient as you'd hope. In metro areas there are these huge concrete blocks called "railway stations" every few kilometers and getting around those pushes the cost up considerably. From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Tue Aug 21 16:37:26 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:37:26 +1000 Subject: [LINK] SMH: 'Languages to live longer' Message-ID: [Back at the dawn of the public Internet, I adopted the contrarian position that other languages would *not* be swamped by English, and that instead many marginal languages would *survive* because the Internet had arrived. My hackneyed example was the connection of the Welsh-speaking diaspora in Patagonia with the remnant in the hills above Aberystwyth. [I'm not right yet, but I'm still hoping. And here's news of a substantial-looking project re the 235 enormously-endangered Aboriginal languages.] Languages to live longer The Sydney Morning Herald, Icon August 20, 2007 Aboriginal culture is turning to technology, writes Lia Timson. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/languages-to-live-longer/2007/08/18/1186857828354.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 In a true marriage of old and new, the internet is set to perpetuate, if not, revive dozens of Aboriginal languages facing extinction. The Miromaa software project - miromaa means "saved" in Arwarbukarl language - was developed by two Aboriginal men in Newcastle despite assurances from linguists that lay community members were ill-equipped to save languages. [Miramar was a Mudgee wine-brand, I do hope we don't end up with 'intellectual property' problems!! But hopefully Newcastle and Mudgee were different language regions. Yep - Arwarbukarl cf. Wiradjuri according to http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/pathways.asp ] Daryn McKenny, general manager of the not-for-profit Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association (www.arwarbukarl.com.au) led the development of the program. It will be used in a yet-to-be-launched website that aims to take the linguistic salvaging effort worldwide. It is estimated that from the 250 known Australian Aboriginal languages, only 15 to 20 are fluently spoken today. The top five indigenous languages are spoken at home by between 2500 and 5800 people only, according to the 2006 census. "What culture is left is disappearing every day with each elder who passes away," McKenny says. "We need not just linguists but an army of people and technology to slow down the loss." Arwarbukarl, originally spoken by the people of what is now Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and the lower Hunter Valley, is among those languages in danger of disappearing. "We were doing song and dance to educate the community and our own kids, we wanted to teach them the culture, but without the language there was something missing. Here we are teaching and talking about our language but in English. It's not the same," McKenny says. The project was almost killed four years ago when the now-defunct ATSIC conducted a review that recommended funding be cut because "two fellas without a linguist could not revive a language", he says. "It was a big kick up the butt but it meant we had to change our ways and work smarter." With a background in computing, he started a search for language software around the world but settled for developing one from scratch when he realised existing programs were aimed at professionals studying threatened languages, not those practising them. Miromaa allows community users of different language groups to post text, images, sound and video of words and phrases in a sort of communal multimedia dictionary effort and in the process create a resource others can use. It has a separate section for linguists. It has been licensed to cultural centres in Victoria, Western Australia and north Queensland. But it is the Our Languages website that will allow the wider community to learn indigenous languages when it launches later this year. It will cater for multiple dialects, so that an online search for the word "emu", for example, will elicit several regional results, including audio of the correct pronunciations. The site (www.ourlanguages.com.au) is still under development and inaccessible but will be open to all when finished. "Everyone in Australia talks Aboriginal and they don't even know it - it's in the street names, the places, everywhere," McKenny says. Our Languages will be launched with significant pro-bono help from Microsoft under its Unlimited Potential program and technology-enabling company, Dimension Data. It received partial funding from the Federal Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) but additional funds will be needed to add more languages. The first dedicated national Aboriginal TV channel was launched last month. National Indigenous Television (nitv.org.au) carries 24-hour programming and can be seen by Optus Aurora satellite subscribers and Imparja's Channel 31 viewers in remote Australia. The $50 million venture, backed by the federal department, will be available nationally via Foxtel and Austar from October. The channel is calling for program submissions from the community, including language-preservation ideas. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From lucychili at gmail.com Tue Aug 21 17:02:04 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:32:04 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Noes from OOXML standards forum In-Reply-To: <20070820232907.72CF210EF1@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> References: <20070820004813.296F5134B@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> <46C916B0.1070205@lannet.com.au> <20070820232907.72CF210EF1@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: On 8/20/07, Tom Worthington wrote: > I do not believe that Standards Australia are biased in favour of > Microsoft. The standards people make standards in a vast range of > areas and can't be experts in the details. It is up to the experts on > the committees to advise on what is a good standard and what is not. > It does not good to shout abuse at the standards administrators about > the technical details of a topic they do not understand. I agree that the SA staff seemed to be making a best effort. I also agree with Glen and others that it seems that the process was not really focused around the content of the standard and direct implications for AU folk and nation. Part of that is due to 6000pages on a fast track which seems to me to be a recipe for a train wreck. Part of that is perhaps related to the way the SA site encourages people to represent their own or partisan interests rather than being an opportunity to look at what the national interest would be best served by. The MOU is phrased around national interest but the processes are not well structured to serve those purposes imho. They can be easily lost in the overlapping self stuff which started these threads off. I do think this is an opportunity to look at what a formal standard offers Australia in terns of whether it means something is safe to use and whether it is a format which people can use as a standard or whether standards do not mean those kinds of things and are simply a signal that the format or brand has enough critical mass to get the numbers on a committee of self interest. Given that market share generates a kind of inertia and skill base 'standard' I would have thought that Standards Australia would be well positioned to offer a point of difference from that and to be able to provide a brand around formats which can be used by Australians for government data and for all AU developers to interoperate with safely. The combination of the TPM and DRM aspects of the copyright act and the squirrelly legal aspects of this proposal make it hard to see how this proposal serves as anything other than proof you can drive a humvee over a footbridge if you go fast enough. How is the SA ISO brand currently used, what does it mean for people who look for it? > Also keep in mind that international standards are not made by the > more open, free process used for Internet standards. ISO standards > are made by small closed committees of vested interests, copies of > the standards are sold for money and standards can use patented > technology where a licence fee is charged for use. In that context > the process for OOXML is relatively free and open. The process for ODF was more open and negotiated and I think it is the ongoing open process which is the core value of the ISO brand. It is what provides the opportunity to be more than a vendor sumo match and to be something around best practice, interoperable formats and accessible data for people/users all of us. > You can't blame SA staff for following their set down procedures. If > you don't like the way such standards are made, then what is needed > is for those procedures to be changed, or for other bodies with > different procedures to be used for making standards. The easiest way > I can see to do this is the same "fast track" process being used for > OOXML. I think the fast track is the problem. I think the use by a vendor to push something through a fast track is the natural outcome of a process like that and that it will encourage those kinds of results. > With this some other body prepares a draft using their own > process and then puts it up, completed, to be a standard. That body > can use a freer process and make its draft freely available. SA, ISO > and other standards bodies can then endorse it officially and sell > their official version of the standard. I would be concerned that this would abdicate national interest to the kind of process we are currently watching. imho Open negotiation of the *development* and ongoing review and improvement of best practice standards for infrastructure as fundamental as information access and storage should be something which Australia has a collective interest in. I feel we need to polish up our own Australian priorities for processes around developing and branding standards which enable our full participation and provide reliable long term access to our information assets. I am a newbie to these kinds of processes but to me, both in the USFTA process and in this process I see that vendors are well positioned and that the consumer or public interest of our country is not a strong vision or guiding principle by which the standard is assessed. Perhaps this is a resourcing issue or a policy shift? Perhaps it is just that I am new to these issues and that there are Australians working to those principles in ISO and OASIS. Would be great to see the national and public interest get a stronger apparent purpose and scope for value than is currently apparent. Janet From stephen at melbpc.org.au Wed Aug 22 00:12:24 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:12:24 GMT Subject: [LINK] Carrick Awards Message-ID: <20070821141224.BAB88170D4@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Carrick Awards for Australian University Teaching The Carrick Awards for Australian University Teaching are highly competitive and involve an intensive selection process to assess the achievements of applicants. They are awarded in eight categories .. Media Release August 2007: Announcement of the 2007 Carrick Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning Number of Citation Awards per University (2007) National Australian Catholic University 9 National total 9 ACT The Australian National University 10 University of Canberra 5 ACT total 15 NSW Charles Sturt University 9 Macquarie University 8 Southern Cross University 2 The University of New England 8 The University of New South Wales 9 The University of Newcastle 8 The University of Sydney 7 University of Technology Sydney 7 University of Western Sydney 6 University of Wollongong 9 NSW total 73 NT Charles Darwin University 2 NT total 2 QLD Bond University 4 Central Queensland University 5 Griffith University 10 James Cook University 9 Queensland University of Technology 7 The University of Queensland 9 University of Southern Queensland 5 University of the Sunshine Coast 2 QLD total 51 SA Flinders University 9 The University of Adelaide 8 University of South Australia 8 SA total 25 TAS Australian Maritime College 1 University of Tasmania 5 TAS total 6 VIC Deakin University 9 La Trobe University 3 Monash University 5 RMIT University 8 Swinburne University of Technology 5 The University of Melbourne 10 University of Ballarat 3 Victoria University 3 VIC total 46 WA Curtin University of Technology 7 Edith Cowan University 5 Murdoch University 7 The University of Western Australia 7 WA total 26 AUSTRALIA total 253 -- Cheers, people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Wed Aug 22 09:46:19 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:46:19 +1000 Subject: [LINK] mobile phone video In-Reply-To: <200708200251.l7K2paoK029657@ah.net> References: <20070816153541.7ED8817074@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <200708171547.l7HFlwND022429@ah.net> <20070820004724.6A46D3800@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> <200708200251.l7K2paoK029657@ah.net> Message-ID: <20070821234954.6F4293CCD@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> At 12:37 PM 20/08/2007, Adam Todd wrote: >...I suppose for those who are in mobile homes and on the road, a 7" >wide screen TV and a radio/dvd/tv/DVB-H receiver might be pretty cool. ... There is a whole industry supplying computers and screens designed to fit in vehicles. There are even books on the subject. See my "Build a Car PC" . At a more technical level the US Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) Initiative is looking to standardize a vehicle communication system for safety applications: "Version 1.1 of the VII Architecture and Functional Requirements (dated July 20, 2005) is available and was outlined at a public meeting in late July 2005. This high level architecture, based upon DSRC as a communications medium, describes the functional requirements of the proposed system, which is further divided into 4 elements (the vehicle, roadside infrastructure, and a network for each of public and private uses). The development of the VII Architecture remains a dynamic process, which reflects the complex nature of the VII technical and institutional issues." But if the consumers can get around the safety interlocks which prevent you from watching TV while driving, the in-car screens may cause many more accidents than they prevent. 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 From Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au Wed Aug 22 10:00:11 2007 From: Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au (Evan.ARTHUR at Dest.gov.au) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:00:11 +1000 Subject: [LINK] auDA Public Board Meeting - Monday Aug 13 - Sydney [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] In-Reply-To: <20070820165332.GA8589@malaria> Message-ID: <8DA55692F752634C955C1DDAF682629801C1B3A1@acexp007.portfolio.base> Kim Davies wrote: < References: <635bd2180708071552i5941076an2da63887049e1d08@mail.gmail.com> <7.1.0.9.0.20070808122515.01c51c48@tomw.net.au> <7.1.0.9.0.20070810122805.01bf0d68@tomw.net.au> Message-ID: <20070822235741.5B7B71EB3D@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 12:32 PM 10/08/2007, I wrote (was: "Open Source Alternative to the iPhone, Canberra, 15 August 2007"): >... Open Source Alternative to the iPhone ... Shayne Flint ... 15 >August 2007 ... Slides from Shayne's talk are at . He will be giving a repeat performance for the Sydney Linux User's Group, 31 August: . Other Green ICT talks planned for Canberra are: * Broadband for Environmental Sustainability, 19 September 2007 * Computers and green architecture, Canberra, 17 October 2007 * Reducing The IT Sectors Carbon Footprint, 21 November 2007 <http://education.acs.org.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=3723> ps: My notes from the Green CIO Conference are at and Green CIO Award winners . 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 From stephen at melbpc.org.au Thu Aug 23 12:50:29 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 02:50:29 GMT Subject: [LINK] Google Sky Message-ID: <20070823025029.7CB3516C70@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Hi all, New from Google .. Google Sky, a free downloadable feature of Google Earth, galactic tourists can view and navigate through 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies .. Cheers Paul Stephen Loosley Victoria Australia From drose at nla.gov.au Thu Aug 23 14:11:26 2007 From: drose at nla.gov.au (Daniel Rose) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:11:26 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Google Sky In-Reply-To: <20070823025029.7CB3516C70@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070823025029.7CB3516C70@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <46CD08EE.4090906@nla.gov.au> stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Hi all, > > New from Google .. > > > > Google Sky, a free downloadable feature of Google Earth, galactic tourists > can view and navigate through 100 million individual stars and 200 million > galaxies .. Celestia has been around for over five years. http://www.shatters.net/celestia/gallery.html ... but won't get the press coverage. From grove at zeta.org.au Thu Aug 23 14:36:54 2007 From: grove at zeta.org.au (grove at zeta.org.au) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:36:54 +1000 (EST) Subject: [LINK] Google Sky In-Reply-To: <46CD08EE.4090906@nla.gov.au> References: <20070823025029.7CB3516C70@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <46CD08EE.4090906@nla.gov.au> Message-ID: stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Hi all, > > New from Google .. > > > Google Sky, a free downloadable feature of Google Earth, galactic tourists > can view and navigate through 100 million individual stars and 200 million > galaxies .. Thanks for nothing, GoogleSky. I already had 4.0 installed and downloaded 4.2 to see the galaxies. Anyway, you need OSX 10.4 or better to use it. Stupid me, thinking it was a common binary, now I have to download 4.0 again. Stupid Google, for not clearly stating the requirements before allowing the user to freely download the binary without a compatibility matrix :/ I won't make that mistake again. -- Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia grove at zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html Will you tolerate this? Return Hew Raymond Griffiths now... "Who do you trust?" - John W Howard From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Thu Aug 23 14:49:04 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:49:04 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Google Sky In-Reply-To: <20070823025029.7CB3516C70@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070823025029.7CB3516C70@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: At 2:50 +0000 23/8/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >New from Google .. > >Google Sky, a free downloadable feature of Google Earth, galactic tourists >can view and navigate through 100 million individual stars and 200 million >galaxies .. Invasion of Privacy!!!! Partly for all those little planets quietly and anonymously going about their business, who will now have people queueing up to label them. But especially for poor Virgo fighting off the attentions of Taurus! And as for that disgusting Castor and Bollocks, well!! -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Thu Aug 23 15:32:24 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:32:24 +1000 Subject: [LINK] RFI: Spambot Architecture Message-ID: I've always assumed that malware designed to despatch spam from zombie'd devices scattered around the world would generate the messages itself, and would not rely in any way on the device's own email-client. My rationale was that: (a) a bot is general-purpose, and would need the capability to enveigle its way into whatever email-client its host was running. That would be a pretty challenging piece of design and programming. (Or does Outlook have such a big market-share and/or sufficient consistency among versions that an Outlook-only bot would do?) (b) if it used the local email-client, copies of the outgoing mail would go into the client's out-tray (or wherever any filters might move it to). But to improve its survival chances, a bot should avoid disclosing its existence OTOH, a couple of people have claimed to me that they've had email in their Outbox that they hadn't created. Is anyone aware of credible claims of such things? Is there any other circumstance that can result in not-manually-generated email turning up in the out-tray of an email-client? Is it feasible for incoming mail to accidentally trigger filters that will place the incoming message in the Outbox? And, if so, can that be, and has that been, exploited? -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From stil at stilgherrian.com Thu Aug 23 15:55:10 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:55:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] RFI: Spambot Architecture In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Working on the principle that a quick answer that may be slightly wrong is "close enough"... On 23/8/07 3:32 PM, "Roger Clarke" wrote: > I've always assumed that malware designed to despatch spam from > zombie'd devices scattered around the world would generate the > messages itself, and would not rely in any way on the device's own > email-client. Windows has MAPI (mail application programmers interface) built in, and Outlook Express and Internet Explorer (as well as Outlook, I understand) all use that library to send email. You can pretty much rely on its existence. So any bot can therefore just issue MAPI calls to send email. (Similarly, on a hacked *nix box, you can assume that you have the core "mail" system call. And if it's a web server you can assume that you have, say, PHP available to send email -- particularly if you have just hacked in using a flaw in, say, WordPress which is written in PHP. I know this first-hand, and have a copy of the bot that was installed on file for anyone who's interested.) I presume (note word!) that any email sent using MAPI will end up in the Outlook Express outbox. HTH, Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From gdt at gdt.id.au Thu Aug 23 16:30:48 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:00:48 +0930 Subject: [LINK] RFI: Spambot Architecture In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1187850648.3586.65.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> > OTOH, a couple of people have claimed to me that they've had email in > their Outbox that they hadn't created. The spam-bot designer has a Hobson's Choice. 1) Use its own SMTP implementation 2) Use the user's mail client or its API (1) is attractive for the reasons you notice, but most corporate mail clients can't mail to the outside world directly -- they go via a corporate mail server and direct use of SMTP with the outside world is blocked by the firewall. Generally, the spambot doesn't know enough to work out where the corporate mail relay is, what type it is (MAPI v SMTP v Submission) or have enough info to authenticate. Users themselves have enough trouble working all this out. So (2) starts to look attractive. So what is an Outbox? It's a file on the user's PC. Hmmm. We could append our spam to that and the next time the user connects and authenticates to their mail server it will be sent. [This is really a good case showing the value of Mandatory Access Controls (such as SELinux) for all programs, not just Internet-exposed servers.] There's a small risk of this being seen, but it is effective as it works even behind a well set up network. There's a variant on (2). We could find the user's mail password (either because it has been saved in a insecure file because the mail client is trying to save the user from typing or by running a keylogger) and call the mail API ourselves. That's getting very complicated and spambots need to work across a large range of software installations. Cheers, Glen From scott at doc.net.au Thu Aug 23 20:36:14 2007 From: scott at doc.net.au (Scott Howard) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:36:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] RFI: Spambot Architecture In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070823103614.GB27661@milliways.doc.net.au> On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 03:55:10PM +1000, Stilgherrian wrote: > > I've always assumed that malware designed to despatch spam from > > zombie'd devices scattered around the world would generate the > > messages itself, and would not rely in any way on the device's own > > email-client. > > So any bot can therefore just issue MAPI calls to send email. They can, but in general, they don't - with only very (very) few expections. Bot-net owners don't want to lose their networks, but sending via MAPI/ standard "smarthost" mail servers will very quickly cause this to occur - the spam becomes much more visable than if it was sent directly from the malware-infected PC. Would you notice if one of your PC's got onto one of the popular RBLs? Probably not. What about if your mail server did? Almost certainly you would. There is a trade-off for that of course - some systems will not be able to connect directly to the internet, so will be unable to send spam. In general, on a global level, the percentage of systems in this category is sufficiently small to make sending direct the best option. For the most part Viruses are different - many of them do send via MAPI, because generally virus writers aren't as concerned with the infected systems being detected as botnet/malware writers are. If you want to help partially fix the problem, may sure you're blocking outbound port 25 requests to the Internet unless you've got a (very!) good reason not to. Many ISPs do this now, and it's one of the reasons that the percentage of spam originating in Australia is dropping, but I'm still amazed how many corporates don't! Scott. From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Thu Aug 23 20:52:20 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:52:20 +1000 Subject: [LINK] RFI: Spambot Architecture In-Reply-To: <20070823103614.GB27661@milliways.doc.net.au> References: <20070823103614.GB27661@milliways.doc.net.au> Message-ID: <46CD66E4.2050302@ozemail.com.au> Scott Howard wrote: [snip] > If you want to help partially fix the problem, may sure you're blocking > outbound port 25 requests to the Internet unless you've got a (very!) > good reason not to. Many ISPs do this now, and it's one of the reasons > that the percentage of spam originating in Australia is dropping, but > I'm still amazed how many corporates don't! > And for individual users: set up the personal firewall so that the e-mail client can *only* talk to the ISP mail server. Don't let it accept or send to any IP other than the ISP's SMTP. Richard Chirgwin > Scott. > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > > From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Thu Aug 23 11:00:48 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:00:48 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Digital Copyright book launch, Canberra, 21 September 2007 Message-ID: <20070823233026.E71506475@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Matthew Rimmer, will be talking about his new book "Digital Copyright & the Consumer Revolution: Hands off my iPod" at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, 3:00 pm, 21 September 2007 . "This book documents and evaluates the growing consumer revolution against digital copyright law, and makes a unique theoretical contribution to the debate surrounding this issue. With a focus on recent US copyright law, the book charts the consumer rebellion against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 (US) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (US). The author explores the significance of key judicial rulings and considers legal controversies over new technologies, such as the iPod, TiVo, Sony Playstation II, Google Book Search, and peer-to-peer networks. The book also highlights cultural developments, such as the emergence of digital sampling and mash-ups, the construction of the BBC Creative Archive, and the evolution of the Creative Commons. Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution will be of prime interest to academics, law students and lawyers interested in the ramifications of copyright law, as well as policymakers given its focus upon recent legislative developments and reform proposals. The book will also appeal to librarians, information managers, creative artists, consumers, technology developers, and other users of copyright material. ..." From: Selected Works of Matthew Rimmer, The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2007 . 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 From brd at iimetro.com.au Fri Aug 24 09:30:57 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:30:57 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Smartcard on hold till next year Message-ID: <46CE18B1.30001@iimetro.com.au> What a surprise! Smartcard on hold till next year Patricia Karvelas August 24, 2007 Australian IT http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22297566-15306,00.html PLANS for a national smartcard have been postponed for at least a year with the Government admitting the deadline for its introduction was unrealistic. The proposal for one-card access to welfare payments has been dogged by controversy since it was raised in 2003, with opponents claiming it is an underhand method of introducing a national identification system. Despite government hopes of introducing a bill this year, Human Services Minister Chris Ellison yesterday said public support was essential if the $1.1billion scheme was to succeed, and there was no way he would put forward legislation before 2008. He said the Government had been far too ambitious in trying to deliver it quickly. "I think the timeline we set was an ambitious one -- to do in four years what other countries do in more than six," he said. The announcement follows the release of an "exposure draft" of the legislation, which prompted submissions that have yet to be considered. "We won't be able to have legislation for the next session because we've had 40-odd submissions to the exposure draft, and we've still got talks ongoing with the states and territories," Senator Ellison said. The card is intended to replace those required to access Medicare and a range of benefits such as unemployment and childcare payments. Senator Ellison said that the card did not have to be carried as a prerequisite for service, but he would not back down on it displaying an identification number, photograph and signature -- issues at the heart of privacy concerns. "I think smartcard technology is coming to Australia no matter what happens at the next election," he said. He said a campaign would be launched to encourage people to sign up for the card, with field officers visiting elderly people and those in isolated regions. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From brd at iimetro.com.au Fri Aug 24 10:22:02 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:22:02 +1000 Subject: [LINK] (Sydney) Travel card delayed yet again Message-ID: <46CE24AA.7050809@iimetro.com.au> It's the day for announcing delays in government smart card projects. This one was supposed to be ready for the Olympics - the Sydney Olympics. Remember them? in 2000. So this project is running about a decade late. Makes the Access Card delay look like a slight hitch. Travel card delayed yet again August 24, 2007 SMH http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/travel-card-delayed-yet-again/2007/08/23/1187462441696.html SYDNEY'S public transport smart card has been delayed further after poor-quality software mangled small-scale trials of the technology on the bus and rail network. Already seven years overdue, the Tcard has been a continuing embarrassment for the State Government, which promised integrated ticketing in time for the Sydney Olympics. The Perth company contracted to introduce the card, ERG Limited, told the sharemarket this week that the project had to be put back yet again "to ensure high levels of system quality". With the Olympics come and gone, full commuter trials of the technology were then meant to begin in November 2004, but were delayed again until the middle of last year. This week ERG's chairman, Colin Henson, said the latest problems would postpone the technology yet again. "This will delay the planned start of a broad-based public trial on the rail system until the beginning of 2008," he said. "This public trial, including performance evaluation and system tuning, will be conducted over a six-month period. The full-scale deployment of bus and rail equipment will then take a further 12 months to complete." The new head of the Public Transport Ticketing Corporation, Elizabeth Zealand, said tests would continue until all problems were ironed out. "Testing has been extended as a consequence of the generally unacceptable quality of software delivered by ERG," she said. The introduction of integrated ticketing now faces a further delay. In last year's budget the project's completion date was 2008, but in this year's papers it was moved to 2009. Transport experts say the Tcard is crucial to the reform of Sydney's ailing public transport network. Since 2002 the Government has spent $63.7 million on the project. ERG has attempted minor trials on State Transit buses leaving the Kingsgrove depot, and on CityRail services leaving Ashfield station. In June, 420 bus drivers boycotted the trial because they had to repeatedly stop driving to fix the Tcard reader when it crashed. Despite this, ERG says a bus-only public trial will be ready next month. But technical problems have also plagued the rail tests that have taken place since February. The complexity of fares across buses, trains and ferries has been a major stumbling block. Ms Zealand said the full commuter trial, when it eventually takes place, would not attempt to tackle the 70-odd fare products which are currently offered. "The trial will be on the basis of a simple discounted single fare, similar to Travel Ten fares," she said. The delay will also mean further debt servicing for ERG, whose financial performance has been in the spotlight. "With higher than expected financing costs due to delays in receipt of some milestone payments, the company now expects to report a net loss after tax of approximately $15 million [for the financial year]," Mr Henson said. The Opposition transport spokesperson, Gladys Berejiklian, said the Tcard was an essential piece of Sydney's transport puzzle. "The lack of integration is causing huge problems in relation to patronage and efficiency," she said. "Ask a rail commuter how long they have to wait to buy a ticket on a Monday morning." -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 24 10:50:37 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:50:37 +1000 Subject: [LINK] (Sydney) Travel card delayed yet again In-Reply-To: <46CE24AA.7050809@iimetro.com.au> References: <46CE24AA.7050809@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46CE2B5D.6070702@ramin.com.au> Firstly, I am going to declare a my interest as a shareholder in an Australian ICT company- though not a significant shareholder. Apparently, one of the issues with public transport cards is the complexity - of the ride length. Like a lot of projects involving ICT, this probably needs a higher perspective and a decision about what is realistic. There are a number of ERG projects elsewhere see: http://www.erggroup.com Note there is a suggestion that all public transport should be free - particularly if the billing gets more expensive than the revenue. > The case for free public transport > 17 March 2007 > NSW?s big cities, especially Sydney, are poisoning the environment and making us all sicker and more stressed. The longer we continue with the state?s ?transport model? ? where cars carry 78% of people to work and trucks 60% of goods ? the worse things will get. and more from google: > A free ride is just the ticket - National - smh.com.au > A coalition of public transport activists will today launch a report, ... smh.com.au Sydney Morning Herald 2007-08-16 A free ride is just the ticket Linton ... > It's the day for announcing delays in government smart card projects. > > This one was supposed to be ready for the Olympics - the Sydney > Olympics. Remember them? in 2000. So this project is running about a > decade late. Makes the Access Card delay look like a slight hitch. > > > Travel card delayed yet again > August 24, 2007 > SMH > http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/travel-card-delayed-yet-again/2007/08/23/1187462441696.html > > > SYDNEY'S public transport smart card has been delayed further after > poor-quality software mangled small-scale trials of the technology on > the bus and rail network. > > Already seven years overdue, the Tcard has been a continuing > embarrassment for the State Government, which promised integrated > ticketing in time for the Sydney Olympics. > > The Perth company contracted to introduce the card, ERG Limited, told > the sharemarket this week that the project had to be put back yet again > "to ensure high levels of system quality". > > With the Olympics come and gone, full commuter trials of the technology > were then meant to begin in November 2004, but were delayed again until > the middle of last year. This week ERG's chairman, Colin Henson, said > the latest problems would postpone the technology yet again. > > "This will delay the planned start of a broad-based public trial on the > rail system until the beginning of 2008," he said. "This public trial, > including performance evaluation and system tuning, will be conducted > over a six-month period. The full-scale deployment of bus and rail > equipment will then take a further 12 months to complete." > > The new head of the Public Transport Ticketing Corporation, Elizabeth > Zealand, said tests would continue until all problems were ironed out. > > "Testing has been extended as a consequence of the generally > unacceptable quality of software delivered by ERG," she said. > > The introduction of integrated ticketing now faces a further delay. In > last year's budget the project's completion date was 2008, but in this > year's papers it was moved to 2009. > > Transport experts say the Tcard is crucial to the reform of Sydney's > ailing public transport network. Since 2002 the Government has spent > $63.7 million on the project. > > ERG has attempted minor trials on State Transit buses leaving the > Kingsgrove depot, and on CityRail services leaving Ashfield station. > > In June, 420 bus drivers boycotted the trial because they had to > repeatedly stop driving to fix the Tcard reader when it crashed. > > Despite this, ERG says a bus-only public trial will be ready next month. > > But technical problems have also plagued the rail tests that have taken > place since February. The complexity of fares across buses, trains and > ferries has been a major stumbling block. > > Ms Zealand said the full commuter trial, when it eventually takes place, > would not attempt to tackle the 70-odd fare products which are currently > offered. > > "The trial will be on the basis of a simple discounted single fare, > similar to Travel Ten fares," she said. > > The delay will also mean further debt servicing for ERG, whose financial > performance has been in the spotlight. "With higher than expected > financing costs due to delays in receipt of some milestone payments, the > company now expects to report a net loss after tax of approximately $15 > million [for the financial year]," Mr Henson said. > > The Opposition transport spokesperson, Gladys Berejiklian, said the > Tcard was an essential piece of Sydney's transport puzzle. > > "The lack of integration is causing huge problems in relation to > patronage and efficiency," she said. > > "Ask a rail commuter how long they have to wait to buy a ticket on a > Monday morning." > > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From link at todd.inoz.com Fri Aug 24 11:46:12 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:46:12 +1000 Subject: [LINK] (Sydney) Travel card delayed yet again In-Reply-To: <46CE24AA.7050809@iimetro.com.au> References: <46CE24AA.7050809@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <200708240148.l7O1mtHT005158@ah.net> At 10:22 AM 24/08/2007, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > >It's the day for announcing delays in government smart card projects. > >This one was supposed to be ready for the Olympics - the Sydney >Olympics. Remember them? in 2000. So this project is running about >a decade late. Makes the Access Card delay look like a slight hitch. > Wasn't that almost a decade ago? Gee Two Olympic Games have almost past since then! Maybe the Government thinks in leap years as a "period" or time reckoning rather than the Georgian Calender? From cas at taz.net.au Fri Aug 24 12:39:10 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:39:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] RFI: Spambot Architecture In-Reply-To: <1187850648.3586.65.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <1187850648.3586.65.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <20070824023910.GU4898@taz.net.au> On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 04:00:48PM +0930, Glen Turner wrote: > The spam-bot designer has a Hobson's Choice. > > 1) Use its own SMTP implementation > 2) Use the user's mail client or its API > > (1) is attractive for the reasons you notice, but most corporate > mail clients can't mail to the outside world directly -- they go > via a corporate mail server and direct use of SMTP with the > outside world is blocked by the firewall. > > Generally, the spambot doesn't know enough to work out where the > corporate mail relay is, what type it is (MAPI v SMTP v Submission) > or have enough info to authenticate. Users themselves have enough > trouble working all this out. > > So (2) starts to look attractive. from a spammer's POV, the big downside to (2) is that it then makes their spam subject to any and all filtering done on both the client machine AND the client's mail relay server. things may be changing now, but this was one of the big reasons why spamware always used its own SMTP implementation (it's a very simple protocol and very easy to implement), rather than either misusing a local mail client or trying to discover the local machine's outbound mail relay. as you say, many firewalls block outbound port 25, and many recipient mail servers use a DUL blacklist to reject incoming mail direct from dynamic/dialup IP addresses - this may be influencing a change towards abusing the local mail service. if so, it's a good thing because it forces the spam to go through the local mail server where it can be detected and trashed before it gets sent (which is precisely why spammers didn't do this in the past). craig -- craig sanders > L L From brd at iimetro.com.au Fri Aug 24 13:33:32 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:33:32 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Smartcard on hold till next year In-Reply-To: <46CE45D7.5050707@lannet.com.au> References: <46CE18B1.30001@iimetro.com.au> <46CE45D7.5050707@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46CE518C.6070807@iimetro.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > So where does that leave the legislation that got rammed through about > six months ago? What legislation? No Access Card legislation has yet been passed. There have been two exposure drafts, that's all. Minister Ellison decided that no contracts would be signed until the legislation had been passed. Considering that the contracts were to be on a fixed price basis and that the legislation could (and very probably would) change the scope and requirements, that was a very good decision (IMHO). The project started just like in that famous cartoon "you start coding - I'll go and find out what they want" http://www.abberley.co.uk/asap/images/You_lot_start_coding.gif -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From cas at taz.net.au Fri Aug 24 13:55:41 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:55:41 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46CE4FED.7050301@lannet.com.au> References: <46CE4FED.7050301@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070824035540.GV4898@taz.net.au> On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 01:26:37PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/24/2013957.htm?section=justin > > > "A blind man is taking legal action against the electoral office because it > will not provide him with a way to vote in secret. > > David Rankin, from Golden Grove in Adelaide, says he has to get a relative > or friend to fill out his ballot paper for both state and federal > elections. in later news, a legless man sues his local council for not providing footpaths that he can walk on. he said "it doesn't matter that i'm not physically capable of walking, it's discriminatory for the council to not do whatever it takes to provide me with a footpath i can walk on, and it's even more discriminatory to expect me to adapt my expectations to match my capabilities". craig -- craig sanders From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Fri Aug 24 14:12:31 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:12:31 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Wikipedia editing by the Australian government Message-ID: <20070824041731.7B3FC4442@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> Channel 10 TV news interviewed me at 2pm as a representative of the ACS about the use of Wikipedia by the Australian government . Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute . The Wikipedia does not require the use of real names by contributors , but records IP addresses. As the Wikipedia says: "An unregistered user is identified by his or her machine's IP address, which is used as their public identifier when making contributions (and signing comments on talk pages). Your computer's IP address can sometimes be used to find information about you, so registering increases your privacy by hiding it. " . The WikiScanner by Virgil Griffith allows IP addresses to be looked up to easily see who edits what on the Wikipedia . As an example a quick search found 3819 edits of the Wikipedia by the Australian Department Of Defence IP range 203.10.220.0-224.255: . Most of these edits seem relatively uncontroversial . Many are to correct spelling errors and details of military units and equipment. Some are to remove some details which should not be widely known for reasons of privacy and security. Others appear to be unrelated to the Defence Department and of general community interest. About the only issue would be if this was a good use of a government agency's computer and staff time. 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 From wavey_one at yahoo.com Fri Aug 24 15:33:44 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:33:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote Message-ID: <597848.117.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Totally irrelevant idiotic uninformed comment Craig. A person who is blind is capable of voting. They are unable to vote in privacy without electronic voting. David ----- Original Message ---- From: Craig Sanders To: Link Sent: Friday, 24 August, 2007 1:55:41 PM Subject: Re: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 01:26:37PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/24/2013957.htm?section=justin > > > "A blind man is taking legal action against the electoral office because it > will not provide him with a way to vote in secret. > > David Rankin, from Golden Grove in Adelaide, says he has to get a relative > or friend to fill out his ballot paper for both state and federal > elections. in later news, a legless man sues his local council for not providing footpaths that he can walk on. he said "it doesn't matter that i'm not physically capable of walking, it's discriminatory for the council to not do whatever it takes to provide me with a footpath i can walk on, and it's even more discriminatory to expect me to adapt my expectations to match my capabilities". craig -- craig sanders _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link at mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ____________________________________________________________________________________ Feel safe with award winning spam protection on Yahoo!7 Mail. http://mail.yahoo.com.au From brd at iimetro.com.au Fri Aug 24 15:35:07 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:35:07 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Smartcard on hold till next year In-Reply-To: <46CE6C68.3010807@lannet.com.au> References: <46CE18B1.30001@iimetro.com.au> <46CE45D7.5050707@lannet.com.au> <46CE518C.6070807@iimetro.com.au> <46CE6C68.3010807@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46CE6E0B.6050901@iimetro.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > >> Howard Lowndes wrote: >> >>> So where does that leave the legislation that got rammed through >>> about six months ago? >> >> >> What legislation? No Access Card legislation has yet been passed. >> There have been two exposure drafts, that's all. >> >> Minister Ellison decided that no contracts would be signed until the >> legislation had been passed. > > I must have missed that... It's easy to miss something that didn't happen. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From cas at taz.net.au Fri Aug 24 15:41:51 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:41:51 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46CE6CF3.1030700@lannet.com.au> References: <46CE4FED.7050301@lannet.com.au> <20070824035540.GV4898@taz.net.au> <46CE6CF3.1030700@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070824054151.GX4898@taz.net.au> On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 03:30:27PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > Craig Sanders wrote: >> On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 01:26:37PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: >>> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/24/2013957.htm?section=justin >>> >>> >>> "A blind man is taking legal action against the electoral office because >>> it will not provide him with a way to vote in secret. >>> >>> David Rankin, from Golden Grove in Adelaide, says he has to get a >>> relative or friend to fill out his ballot paper for both state and >>> federal elections. >> >> in later news, a legless man sues his local council for not providing >> footpaths that he can walk on. he said "it doesn't matter that i'm not >> physically capable of walking, it's discriminatory for the council to >> not do whatever it takes to provide me with a footpath i can walk on, >> and it's even more discriminatory to expect me to adapt my expectations >> to match my capabilities". > > Yep, that's exactly what has to happen now - provide wheelchair ramps and > disabled toilets - irrespective of their potential need/use. you missed the point. wheelchair ramps aren't good enough - the legless man is demanding that the council has to provide a footpath he can *walk* on, anything less is discriminatory. the fact that he can't physically walk is irrelevant. craig -- craig sanders BOFH excuse #64: CPU needs recalibration From stephen at melbpc.org.au Fri Aug 24 15:42:28 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:42:28 GMT Subject: [LINK] Wikipedia editing by the Australian government Message-ID: <20070824054228.7BBEF17104@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> At 02:12 PM 24/08/2007, Tom writes: > Channel 10 TV news interviewed me at 2pm as a representative of the ACS > about the use of Wikipedia by the Australian government .. As an example > a quick search found 3819 edits of Wikipedia by the Dpt Of Defence, Most > of these edits seem relatively uncontroversial.. the only issue would be > if this was a good use of a government agency's computer and staff time. "The Department of Defence yesterday said it would ban defence staff from accessing the encyclopedia .. The most embarrassing edit was traced to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.." (quotes from the article below) 'Poo bum dicky wee wee' among PMC Wikipedia edits By staff writers and wires, August 24, 2007 09:41am Wikiscanner tracks 126 edits by PM's staff Changes often obscure, one vulgar See the full catalogue of PMC changes here BIZARRE, obscure, and poorly spelt contributions are among Wikipedia edits traced to the Prime Minister?s department ? with one simply stating: ?Poo bum dicky wee wee?. This morning The Sydney Morning Herald revealed staff at the Prime Minister?s department had been editing details on Wikipedia, including changing articles that were damaging to the government. But while some of the contributions are about national political affairs, many of the entries are related to matters such as guitar trivia, bird watching, and historical results of Serbian football matches. A new website, Wiki Scanner, traces the digital fingerprints of those who make changes to entries in the online encyclopedia. It has allowed the identification of edits by computers registered to the CIA and the Vatican. The most embarrassing edit traced to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC) is an act of vandalism on a martial-arts related entry, in which the user wrote, ?Poo bum dicky wee wee? on the page in an apparent test. (See it here.) Edits made by the PMC have enraged some of Wikipedia's notoriously humourless users. On the PMC's "Talk" page, one user even calls for a ban on edits by the PMC, saying it "has a history of pointless vandalism". Other entries include two edits, both with spelling mistakes, on the page related to mandatory detention in Australia. In June this year a user linked to the PMC removed a description of Peter Costello as ?Captain Smirk?. One of the more obscure edits is a single-digit correction to a soccer scoreline in a monster entry about fans of Serbian football club Red Star Belgrade. Wikiscanner also identifies Department of Defence employees as the most prolific Wikipedia contributors in Australia. Wikipedia is promoted as the ?free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?. The Department of Defence yesterday said it would ban defence staff from accessing the encyclopedia. Defence computers were found to have made more than 5000 edits to Wikipedia entries, including articles to the ?9/11 truth movement?, the Australian Defence Force Academy and the Vietnam War-era Pentagon papers. -- Cheers, Tom Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Fri Aug 24 15:49:03 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:49:03 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <597848.117.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133883@cal066.act.gov.au> David opined: > A person who is blind is capable of voting. They are unable > to vote in privacy without electronic voting. Well not quite. Electronic voting may be one of a variety of ways in which a blind person can be given a secret ballot. Some implementations, though, may introduce greater privacy risks than asking a sighted friend, relative or official to help. What if the wheelchair ramp has a pit full of crocodiles in the middle? It may be easier to draw the legless person's attention to the pit than to explain to the blind person about the privacy risks of badly-implemented e-voting and expect them to make an informed decision. Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From kauer at biplane.com.au Fri Aug 24 15:50:42 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:50:42 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46CE6CF3.1030700@lannet.com.au> References: <46CE4FED.7050301@lannet.com.au> <20070824035540.GV4898@taz.net.au> <46CE6CF3.1030700@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <1187934642.8569.91.camel@karl> On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 15:30 +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > Yep, that's exactly what has to happen now - provide wheelchair ramps > and disabled toilets - irrespective of their potential need/use. Actually it's *because* of their potential need/use. All of us will be less than able-bodied one day; we might be glad of that ramp, or handrail, or large toilet cubicle, or easy to operate tap handle, or low light switch, or, or or... They don't inconvenience able-bodied people (in fact are usually easier for able-bodied people to use, too) and generally cost no more than the discriminatory alternative. Unless they are forgotten until the last minute or have to be retrofitted, then they may cost more or be less than optimally designed. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From kauer at biplane.com.au Fri Aug 24 15:58:47 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:58:47 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <597848.117.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <597848.117.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1187935127.8569.100.camel@karl> On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 22:33 -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > Totally irrelevant idiotic uninformed comment Craig. > > A person who is blind is capable of voting. They are unable to vote in privacy without electronic voting. Not true. There are several possibilities that would allow a blind person to vote secretly and check his/her recorded vote without electronic assistance. Non-discriminatory voting is NOT the same as electronic voting, and it is a fallacy to equate the two. Electronic voting would, properly designed, also allow the blind to vote. Electronic voting is NOT a prerequisite for that though. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From wavey_one at yahoo.com Fri Aug 24 16:04:01 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 23:04:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote Message-ID: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Fred, Have you every asked a person who is blind or vision impaired about this? Or are your own prejudices coming out here? The crocodile analogy is pointless, and it's like saying the lifesaver at the beach may drown you when you think they should save you, but you could have struggled to the beach and safety after all. Many people who are blind and vision impaired have advocated for years for a way to vote with privacy. Electronic voting gives them this ability. And for the problems that exist, instead of saying "no, can't have this... [for whatever reason you want to insert here]", how about look at it from a human rights aspect and then think, "how can we make this safe and secure". Something quite a few here seem unable to think of. David ----- Original Message ---- From: "Pilcher, Fred" To: David Goldstein ; Craig Sanders Cc: Link Mailing List Sent: Friday, 24 August, 2007 3:49:03 PM Subject: RE: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote David opined: > A person who is blind is capable of voting. They are unable > to vote in privacy without electronic voting. Well not quite. Electronic voting may be one of a variety of ways in which a blind person can be given a secret ballot. Some implementations, though, may introduce greater privacy risks than asking a sighted friend, relative or official to help. What if the wheelchair ramp has a pit full of crocodiles in the middle? It may be easier to draw the legless person's attention to the pit than to explain to the blind person about the privacy risks of badly-implemented e-voting and expect them to make an informed decision. Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sick of deleting your inbox? Yahoo!7 Mail has free unlimited storage. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From lucychili at gmail.com Fri Aug 24 16:07:46 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:37:46 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <1187935127.8569.100.camel@karl> References: <597848.117.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <1187935127.8569.100.camel@karl> Message-ID: On 8/24/07, Karl Auer wrote: > On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 22:33 -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > > Totally irrelevant idiotic uninformed comment Craig. > > > > A person who is blind is capable of voting. They are unable to vote in privacy without electronic voting. I think accessible private voting for people with limited vision is great. It needs to be done in a way which does not impair the vision of us all to the accuracy and reliability of the voting process as per the USA Diebold situation and earlier thread on the challenges of keeping digital voting machines verifiably honest. Janet From Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au Fri Aug 24 16:16:31 2007 From: Fred.Pilcher at act.gov.au (Pilcher, Fred) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:16:31 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <04BB2ABCD8D07E42ADCF98494C1A2C7208133885@cal066.act.gov.au> > Fred, > > Have you every asked a person who is blind or vision impaired > about this? Or are your own prejudices coming out here? The > crocodile analogy is pointless, and it's like saying the > lifesaver at the beach may drown you when you think they > should save you, but you could have struggled to the beach > and safety after all. > > Many people who are blind and vision impaired have advocated > for years for a way to vote with privacy. Electronic voting > gives them this ability. And for the problems that exist, > instead of saying "no, can't have this... [for whatever > reason you want to insert here]", how about look at it from a > human rights aspect and then think, "how can we make this > safe and secure". Something quite a few here seem unable to think of. You're interpreting my position as wanting to deny blind people a secret ballot? Either I expressed myself very badly, or you're drawing a bow long enough to baffle Robin Hood. Without going into details of my advocacy for and work with the blind over many years on web site accessibility, let me be perfectly clear: my position is that claiming that electronic voting per se is the best solution to their issue is not only wrong, it borders on the deceptive. Electronic voting, *properly implemented*, is certainly one of a variety of ways that blind people can be given a secret ballot. Improperly implemented it's like the wheelchair ramp with the crocodile pit. Of course blind people should have access to a secret ballot. Of course legless people should have wheelchair ramps. But the former should be secure, and the latter should avoid crocodiles. Is that better? Fred ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From brd at iimetro.com.au Fri Aug 24 16:18:14 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:18:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Wikipedia editing by the Australian government In-Reply-To: <20070824054228.7BBEF17104@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070824054228.7BBEF17104@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <46CE7826.5030808@iimetro.com.au> stephen at melbpc.org.au quoted: > 'Poo bum dicky wee wee' among PMC Wikipedia edits > By staff writers and wires, August 24, 2007 09:41am > > > Wikiscanner tracks 126 edits by PM's staff > Changes often obscure, one vulgar > See the full catalogue of PMC changes here This publicity will not stop organisations making changes to Wikipedia entries. It will just make them more sneaky. All that's going to happen is that they get someone with an ISP account to do it from home. Using a big ISP like bigpond will effectively hide the originator's IP address. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Fri Aug 24 17:01:40 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:01:40 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <597848.117.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <597848.117.qm@web50503.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <46CE8254.4000604@ozemail.com.au> David Goldstein wrote: > Totally irrelevant idiotic uninformed comment Craig. > > A person who is blind is capable of voting. They are unable to vote in privacy without electronic voting. > I think the blind could justifiably resent being made into a sort of "group trojan horse" for a completely odious and undemocratic practise - that of subsuming the role of electoral participation to a machine. Do I consider my right to participate in *both* ends (the count as well as the vote) more important than the right of one person to specify the mechanism by which they vote? Yes. And I don't apologise for this. Do I think my right to: - a robust electoral process - a secure electoral process - full participation in the electoral process - an electoral process which can be verified by a citizen without specialist training ...outweighs the right of one person to stipulate the means by which he will vote? Yes: because these are rights of citizens (of Australia), /including Mr Rankin./ He has the right to the transparency of the electoral system (although regrettably not the ability to participate in processes such as scrutineering), and it's damned silly to say "I will give up the integrity of the system to get the system I want". The position taken by Mr Rankin is a variant of the politician's syllogism: - We need a solution - This is a solution - Therefore, we need this. I don't buy it, and don't see why I should. RC > David > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Craig Sanders > To: Link > Sent: Friday, 24 August, 2007 1:55:41 PM > Subject: Re: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote > > On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 01:26:37PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > >> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/24/2013957.htm?section=justin >> >> >> "A blind man is taking legal action against the electoral office because it >> will not provide him with a way to vote in secret. >> >> David Rankin, from Golden Grove in Adelaide, says he has to get a relative >> or friend to fill out his ballot paper for both state and federal >> elections. >> > > in later news, a legless man sues his local council for not providing > footpaths that he can walk on. he said "it doesn't matter that i'm not > physically capable of walking, it's discriminatory for the council to > not do whatever it takes to provide me with a footpath i can walk on, > and it's even more discriminatory to expect me to adapt my expectations > to match my capabilities". > > > craig > > From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 24 17:34:52 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:34:52 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Wikipedia editing by the Australian government In-Reply-To: <46CE7826.5030808@iimetro.com.au> References: <20070824054228.7BBEF17104@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <46CE7826.5030808@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46CE8A1C.6040207@ramin.com.au> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > stephen at melbpc.org.au quoted: >> 'Poo bum dicky wee wee' among PMC Wikipedia edits >> By staff writers and wires, August 24, 2007 09:41am >> >> >> Wikiscanner tracks 126 edits by PM's staff Changes often obscure, one >> vulgar See the full catalogue of PMC changes here > > This publicity will not stop organisations making changes to Wikipedia > entries. It will just make them more sneaky. > > All that's going to happen is that they get someone with an ISP account > to do it from home. Using a big ISP like bigpond will effectively hide > the originator's IP address. > Seems that some of these may not have been official changes, just people using company resources... Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From wavey_one at yahoo.com Fri Aug 24 17:51:05 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:51:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote Message-ID: <208445.13504.qm@web50507.mail.re2.yahoo.com> So the answer to Richard's concerns below is to work for a solution. By saying existing technologies are not perfect therefore we should abandon the idea of electronic voting is idiotic. The objective should be how to make electronic voting work taking into account everyone's concerns. Let's face it, electronic voting is here with its imperfections, and it's going to happen and be available to everyone in the not too distant future. So make it work. Karl, I agree "Non-discriminatory voting is NOT the same as electronic voting, and it is a fallacy to equate the two." But, electronic voting is probably the only viable method of giving people who are blind a private vote. Fred, no, I didn't expect you would want to deny people who are blind the vote. It was a response to the continued inability of a number of people on this list to understand the issues involving people who are blind. People who are sighted take things like the ability to vote in privacy for granted. It's not even important for a lot of people, blind or sighted. And Craig, dear Craig. I love his childish filter for my messages. Makes me feel proud! Go Craig, go! David ----- Original Message ---- From: Richard Chirgwin To: Link Mailing List Sent: Friday, 24 August, 2007 5:01:40 PM Subject: Re: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote David Goldstein wrote: > Totally irrelevant idiotic uninformed comment Craig. > > A person who is blind is capable of voting. They are unable to vote in privacy without electronic voting. > I think the blind could justifiably resent being made into a sort of "group trojan horse" for a completely odious and undemocratic practise - that of subsuming the role of electoral participation to a machine. Do I consider my right to participate in *both* ends (the count as well as the vote) more important than the right of one person to specify the mechanism by which they vote? Yes. And I don't apologise for this. Do I think my right to: - a robust electoral process - a secure electoral process - full participation in the electoral process - an electoral process which can be verified by a citizen without specialist training ...outweighs the right of one person to stipulate the means by which he will vote? Yes: because these are rights of citizens (of Australia), /including Mr Rankin./ He has the right to the transparency of the electoral system (although regrettably not the ability to participate in processes such as scrutineering), and it's damned silly to say "I will give up the integrity of the system to get the system I want". The position taken by Mr Rankin is a variant of the politician's syllogism: - We need a solution - This is a solution - Therefore, we need this. I don't buy it, and don't see why I should. RC > David > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Craig Sanders > To: Link > Sent: Friday, 24 August, 2007 1:55:41 PM > Subject: Re: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote > > On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 01:26:37PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > >> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/24/2013957.htm?section=justin >> >> >> "A blind man is taking legal action against the electoral office because it >> will not provide him with a way to vote in secret. >> >> David Rankin, from Golden Grove in Adelaide, says he has to get a relative >> or friend to fill out his ballot paper for both state and federal >> elections. >> > > in later news, a legless man sues his local council for not providing > footpaths that he can walk on. he said "it doesn't matter that i'm not > physically capable of walking, it's discriminatory for the council to > not do whatever it takes to provide me with a footpath i can walk on, > and it's even more discriminatory to expect me to adapt my expectations > to match my capabilities". > > > craig > > _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link at mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get the World's number 1 free email service. http://mail.yahoo.com.au From stil at stilgherrian.com Fri Aug 24 18:08:27 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:08:27 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <208445.13504.qm@web50507.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 24/8/07 5:51 PM, "David Goldstein" wrote: > So the answer to Richard's concerns below is to work for a solution. By saying > existing technologies are not perfect therefore we should abandon the idea of > electronic voting is idiotic. The objective should be how to make electronic > voting work taking into account everyone's concerns. > > Let's face it, electronic voting is here with its imperfections, and it's > going to happen and be available to everyone in the not too distant future. So > make it work. Oh dear! That really just says "It doesn't matter that there are imperfections, 'electronic voting is here' (fait accompli) so put up with it." No, we can say "NO, this isn't good enough, go away and try again." To me, that argument is one step up from "No-one else has a problem with it, so you shouldn't either," i.e. bullying people into conformity. David, I don't think for one minute you're a bully! But the argument is still saying that electronic voting is a given -- when I for one still don't see what the *advantage* is. The question must always be "How does this enhance our democracy?" I still haven't seen where that's been answered. > Karl, I agree "Non-discriminatory voting is NOT the same as electronic voting, > and it is a fallacy to equate the two." But, electronic voting is probably the > only viable method of giving people who are blind a private vote. How about putting braille on *every* ballot paper? That way you can't tell whether the vote came from the one blind person in the room. Problem solved, surely? Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From kauer at biplane.com.au Fri Aug 24 19:51:32 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:51:32 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <208445.13504.qm@web50507.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <208445.13504.qm@web50507.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1187949092.8569.128.camel@karl> On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 00:51 -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > So the answer to Richard's concerns below is to work for a solution. > By saying existing technologies are not perfect therefore we should > abandon the idea of electronic voting is idiotic. The objective should > be how to make electronic voting work taking into account everyone's > concerns. One objective. > Let's face it, electronic voting is here with its imperfections, and > it's going to happen and be available to everyone in the not too > distant future. So make it work. Yes. By all means. But let's NOT accept it WITH its imperfections. They are too dangerous. > Karl, I agree "Non-discriminatory voting is NOT the same as electronic > voting, and it is a fallacy to equate the two." But, electronic voting > is probably the only viable method of giving people who are blind a > private vote. I don't buy that for one second. If a few intelligent people put their minds to it, they could come up with a good low-tech solution to the problem. It probably wouldn't make anyone much money, though. Two minutes thought suggest various low-tech mechanisms to preserve the secrecy (not privacy) of the vote while allowing the blind voter to check his/her vote. The dangers of current electronic voting technology mean it MUST NOT be introduced. Not even the most basic attack vectors have been dealt with; not even the most basic errors have been avoided. The gung-ho, go-for-it, lets-do-it, it'll-be-alright-on-the-night BS coming from various vested interests MUST be ignored. Using the lack of voting secrecy for a few handicapped voters to justify endangering the entire system is just not acceptable - especially since it invalidates the system for those voters too. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From kauer at biplane.com.au Fri Aug 24 19:56:46 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:56:46 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1187949406.8569.133.camel@karl> On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 18:08 +1000, Stilgherrian wrote: > How about putting braille on *every* ballot paper? That way you can't > tell whether the vote came from the one blind person in the room. > Problem solved, surely? Not all blind people - especially those who are temporarily blind or went blind late in life - can read Braille. But that would be a good part of an overall solution, and would reduce the load on any systems implemented for other kinds of handicap. Personally, I feel that the current system of assistance, which preserves all features of voting for the handicapped person *except* secrecy, is an acceptable compromise. However, if a blind person demands secrecy, there should be a way of offering it. It will be only rarely used. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From cas at taz.net.au Sat Aug 25 09:18:41 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:18:41 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <1187949092.8569.128.camel@karl> References: <208445.13504.qm@web50507.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <1187949092.8569.128.camel@karl> Message-ID: <20070824231841.GZ4898@taz.net.au> On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 07:51:32PM +1000, Karl Auer wrote: > On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 00:51 -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > > Let's face it, electronic voting is here with its imperfections, and > > it's going to happen and be available to everyone in the not too > > distant future. So make it work. > > Yes. By all means. But let's NOT accept it WITH its imperfections. They > are too dangerous. i don't think anyone's dead-set against (good, well-designed, secure, etc) machines that *assist* with voting. if that enables verifiable private voting for the blind (e.g. by outputting both text and braille on the ballot when printed or, alternatively, a bar-code which could be scanned by a voice synthesizer to read the printed ballot to the blind voter - but there *MUST* be a way for the blind voter to verify that the printed ballot matches his/her voting intentions), so much the better. the objection is with electronic *counting* of votes. that's too great a security risk, too easy to subvert and, as Richard pointed out, denies the right of all citizens to participate in the scrutineering. i.e. machine-assisted voting while retaining manual counting would probably be acceptable to most. use the machine, print the ballot, check that it's correct, put it in the ballot box as normal. unfortunately, there are commercial and government interests that want electronic counting and are trying very hard to find excuses to justify it - their best bet is to latch on and use disabled groups like the blind to provide them cover. they will conflate the two and present it as a package deal as if it's impossible to have machine-assisted voting without electronic counting. > > Karl, I agree "Non-discriminatory voting is NOT the same as electronic > > voting, and it is a fallacy to equate the two." But, electronic voting > > is probably the only viable method of giving people who are blind a > > private vote. > > I don't buy that for one second. If a few intelligent people put their > minds to it, they could come up with a good low-tech solution to the > problem. It probably wouldn't make anyone much money, though. Two > minutes thought suggest various low-tech mechanisms to preserve the > secrecy (not privacy) of the vote while allowing the blind voter to > check his/her vote. you've said this a few times now, but without providing any details of these methods you claim to see....so, please, give us the benefit of your two-minutes worth of thought. > The dangers of current electronic voting technology mean it MUST NOT be > introduced. Not even the most basic attack vectors have been dealt with; > not even the most basic errors have been avoided. The gung-ho, > go-for-it, lets-do-it, it'll-be-alright-on-the-night BS coming from > various vested interests MUST be ignored. > > Using the lack of voting secrecy for a few handicapped voters to justify > endangering the entire system is just not acceptable - especially since > it invalidates the system for those voters too. precisely. craig -- craig sanders From brd at iimetro.com.au Sat Aug 25 10:29:15 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 10:29:15 +1000 Subject: [LINK] America's Hackable Backbone Message-ID: <46CF77DB.5000605@iimetro.com.au> Now I have a metal hip joint, I get seriously frisked every time I go through airport security. This, I am told is for my own safety. But is critical infrastructure protected? Doesn't look like it, from this story. There's a distinct lack of balance and completeness in all this anti-terrorism stuff. It's almost as though those who are elected to represent us want to be seen to be doing something, even if it is less than useful and over the top. When what they should be doing is everything that needs to be done and at a consistent level. America's Hackable Backbone Andy Greenberg, 08.22.07, 6:00 PM ET Forbes http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/22/scada-hackers-infrastructure-tech-security-cx_ag_0822hack.html The first time Scott Lunsford offered to hack into a nuclear power station, he was told it would be impossible. There was no way, the plant's owners claimed, that their critical components could be accessed from the Internet. Lunsford, a researcher for IBM's Internet Security Systems, found otherwise. "It turned out to be one of the easiest penetration tests I'd ever done," he says. "By the first day, we had penetrated the network. Within a week, we were controlling a nuclear power plant. I thought, 'Gosh. This is a big problem.'" In retrospect, Lunsford says--and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agrees--that government-mandated safeguards would have prevented him from triggering a nuclear meltdown. But he's fairly certain that by accessing controls through the company's network, he could have sabotaged the power supply to a large portion of the state. "It would have been as simple as closing a valve," he says. The disturbingly vulnerable system that Lunsford hijacked is powered by Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software, or SCADA, a type of software made by companies including Siemens (nyse: SI - news - people ), ABB (nyse: ABB - news - people ), Rockwell Automation (nyse: ROK - news - people ) and Emerson. SCADA systems are used around the country to control infrastructure like water filtration and distribution, trains and subways, natural gas and oil pipelines, and practically every kind of industrial manufacturing. And as some security professionals are pointing out, those weaknesses are increasingly connected to the Internet, leaving large parts of America's critical infrastructure exposed to anyone with moderate information technology training and a laptop. At the DefCon hacker conference earlier this month, security researcher Ganesh Devarajan gave a presentation detailing how researchers can find flaws in SCADA systems using "fuzzing," a technique that floods software with data and tracks which input causes a crash, allowing hackers to inject their own commands. "These are simple bugs, but very dangerous ones," says Devarajan, associate security analyst at 3Com-owned security firm TippingPoint. He says he's alerted SCADA software vendors to all the flaws he's found, but he nonetheless imagines a scenario in which someone plants a contaminant in a water reservoir and hacks into water-quality sensor systems to prevent detection. "If someone can provide false data," he says, "They own the system." To be sure, the threat of attacks on major SCADA systems isn't entirely new, and the wave of cyberterrorism predictions that followed Sept. 11, 2001, have largely been dismissed as hype and paranoia. But given SCADA systems' vulnerability, many experts wonder why those attacks haven't yet materialized. One answer may be the sheer complexity of major infrastructure systems: Though SCADA computers have weak external security, controlling them takes engineering expertise. Most hackers could only gain enough control to create the fear that they're capable of something worse, says Alan Paller, director of the SANS Institute. That means that even if outright attacks aren't increasing, there's a growing threat of extortion, says Paller. In fact, the SANS Institute hosts a crisis response center for cyberattacks, and Paller says he's learned of multiple threats within the last year and a half from hackers claiming to have infiltrated SCADA systems and demanding ransom. Other shakedowns have likely gone unreported. Paller predicts that those incidents will increase. "There's been very active and sophisticated chatter in the hacker community, trading exploits on how to break through capabilities on these systems," he says. "That kind of chatter usually precedes bad things happening." Extortion is more than an economic problem; racketeers could easily trigger an accident while trying to demonstrate control over a facility, says Marcus Ranum, chief security officer for Tenable Security. "To spin a pump or move a valve, you don't have to be a petroleum engineer," he says. "Then again, you could spin the wrong pump and blow something up." Not every SCADA sabotage scenario is so hypothetical. In 2000, Vitek Boden, a 48-year-old man fired from his job at a sewage-treatment plant in Australia, remotely accessed his former workplace's computers and poured toxic sludge into parks and rivers; he hoped the plant would re-hire him to solve the leakage problem. In January of 2003, computers infected with the Slammer worm shut down safety display systems at the Davis-Besse power plant in Ohio, though the plant was already shut down at the time. Seven months later, another computer virus was widely suspected by security researchers of leading to a power loss at a plant providing electricity to parts of New York State, despite the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's argument that no evidence of virus-involvement was found. SCADA systems' lack of security features is a symptom of their age; most were developed at a time when critical infrastructure systems weren't connected to the Internet and needed no intrusion prevention. Some have a 20-year life span, making them obsolete for years after they're installed. And many of the companies that develop SCADA software make installing security patches difficult or, fearing that patches will hamper the software's operation, don't offer customer support for patched systems. All of which still leaves U.S. infrastructure open to crippling attacks by criminal hackers or cyberterrorists, says Jim Christy, director of future exploration at the Department of Defense's Cyber Crime Center. "This is an Achille's heel for several of our critical systems," Christy says. "Nation-states and terrorist organizations are definitely looking at this as an option, a weapon of mass disruption." That kind of risk means major security changes are necessary, says Christy. But because SCADA systems are largely owned by the private sector, critical infrastructure like power plants and water systems may remain vulnerable until the problem affects profits--or leads to disaster. Christy argues that we can't wait that long: His unofficial opinion is that SCADA needs government regulation. "The government mandates fire sprinklers. Those cost builders money, but they save property and lives," he says. "If critical infrastructure is important to our national security, shouldn't there be minimum standards it has to meet?" -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Sat Aug 25 13:45:19 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:45:19 +1000 Subject: [LINK] America's Hackable Backbone In-Reply-To: <46CF77DB.5000605@iimetro.com.au> References: <46CF77DB.5000605@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46CFA5CF.3090206@ozemail.com.au> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > > Now I have a metal hip joint, I get seriously frisked every time I go > through airport security. > > This, I am told is for my own safety. > > But is critical infrastructure protected? Doesn't look like it, from > this story. > > There's a distinct lack of balance and completeness in all this > anti-terrorism stuff. It's almost as though those who are elected to > represent us want to be seen to be doing something, even if it is less > than useful and over the top. When what they should be doing is > everything that needs to be done and at a consistent level. > ...Balance and completeness? There's none at all. Cyberterror is like Goosebumps books: "scare and sell". The facts of the Vitek Boden case are misreported (he did not "remotely" access the network; he directly accessed the network. That is, he used a node on the network to log into the network, nothing "remote" about it). The facts of the New York State electricity shutdown are misreported, in that the denial that Slammer was involved was based on identifying the system that really caused the problem - IIRC, a Unix system managed by General Electric as contractor, but I may have slipped. The facts of the "nuclear plant break-in" are reported from a single source with no verification. The simplest solution is to completely disconnect critical SCADA from the Internet, and use only private networks: Dark fibre, private point-to-point radio networks, DDS links, naked copper ... etc. But this "simplest solution" doesn't leave room for a good Goosebumps book. My summary of the Forbes piece: there's so much steaming dung it's hard to find nourishment... RC > > America's Hackable Backbone > Andy Greenberg, > 08.22.07, 6:00 PM ET > Forbes > http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/22/scada-hackers-infrastructure-tech-security-cx_ag_0822hack.html > > > The first time Scott Lunsford offered to hack into a nuclear power > station, he was told it would be impossible. There was no way, the > plant's owners claimed, that their critical components could be > accessed from the Internet. Lunsford, a researcher for IBM's Internet > Security Systems, found otherwise. > > "It turned out to be one of the easiest penetration tests I'd ever > done," he says. "By the first day, we had penetrated the network. > Within a week, we were controlling a nuclear power plant. I thought, > 'Gosh. This is a big problem.'" > > In retrospect, Lunsford says--and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission > agrees--that government-mandated safeguards would have prevented him > from triggering a nuclear meltdown. But he's fairly certain that by > accessing controls through the company's network, he could have > sabotaged the power supply to a large portion of the state. "It would > have been as simple as closing a valve," he says. > > The disturbingly vulnerable system that Lunsford hijacked is powered > by Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software, or SCADA, a type > of software made by companies including Siemens (nyse: SI - news - > people ), ABB (nyse: ABB - news - people ), Rockwell Automation (nyse: > ROK - news - people ) and Emerson. > > SCADA systems are used around the country to control infrastructure > like water filtration and distribution, trains and subways, natural > gas and oil pipelines, and practically every kind of industrial > manufacturing. And as some security professionals are pointing out, > those weaknesses are increasingly connected to the Internet, leaving > large parts of America's critical infrastructure exposed to anyone > with moderate information technology training and a laptop. > > At the DefCon hacker conference earlier this month, security > researcher Ganesh Devarajan gave a presentation detailing how > researchers can find flaws in SCADA systems using "fuzzing," a > technique that floods software with data and tracks which input causes > a crash, allowing hackers to inject their own commands. > > "These are simple bugs, but very dangerous ones," says Devarajan, > associate security analyst at 3Com-owned security firm TippingPoint. > He says he's alerted SCADA software vendors to all the flaws he's > found, but he nonetheless imagines a scenario in which someone plants > a contaminant in a water reservoir and hacks into water-quality sensor > systems to prevent detection. "If someone can provide false data," he > says, "They own the system." > > To be sure, the threat of attacks on major SCADA systems isn't > entirely new, and the wave of cyberterrorism predictions that followed > Sept. 11, 2001, have largely been dismissed as hype and paranoia. But > given SCADA systems' vulnerability, many experts wonder why those > attacks haven't yet materialized. > > One answer may be the sheer complexity of major infrastructure > systems: Though SCADA computers have weak external security, > controlling them takes engineering expertise. Most hackers could only > gain enough control to create the fear that they're capable of > something worse, says Alan Paller, director of the SANS Institute. > > That means that even if outright attacks aren't increasing, there's a > growing threat of extortion, says Paller. In fact, the SANS Institute > hosts a crisis response center for cyberattacks, and Paller says he's > learned of multiple threats within the last year and a half from > hackers claiming to have infiltrated SCADA systems and demanding > ransom. Other shakedowns have likely gone unreported. > > Paller predicts that those incidents will increase. "There's been very > active and sophisticated chatter in the hacker community, trading > exploits on how to break through capabilities on these systems," he > says. "That kind of chatter usually precedes bad things happening." > > Extortion is more than an economic problem; racketeers could easily > trigger an accident while trying to demonstrate control over a > facility, says Marcus Ranum, chief security officer for Tenable > Security. "To spin a pump or move a valve, you don't have to be a > petroleum engineer," he says. "Then again, you could spin the wrong > pump and blow something up." > > Not every SCADA sabotage scenario is so hypothetical. In 2000, Vitek > Boden, a 48-year-old man fired from his job at a sewage-treatment > plant in Australia, remotely accessed his former workplace's computers > and poured toxic sludge into parks and rivers; he hoped the plant > would re-hire him to solve the leakage problem. > > In January of 2003, computers infected with the Slammer worm shut down > safety display systems at the Davis-Besse power plant in Ohio, though > the plant was already shut down at the time. Seven months later, > another computer virus was widely suspected by security researchers of > leading to a power loss at a plant providing electricity to parts of > New York State, despite the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's argument > that no evidence of virus-involvement was found. > > SCADA systems' lack of security features is a symptom of their age; > most were developed at a time when critical infrastructure systems > weren't connected to the Internet and needed no intrusion prevention. > Some have a 20-year life span, making them obsolete for years after > they're installed. And many of the companies that develop SCADA > software make installing security patches difficult or, fearing that > patches will hamper the software's operation, don't offer customer > support for patched systems. > > All of which still leaves U.S. infrastructure open to crippling > attacks by criminal hackers or cyberterrorists, says Jim Christy, > director of future exploration at the Department of Defense's Cyber > Crime Center. "This is an Achille's heel for several of our critical > systems," Christy says. "Nation-states and terrorist organizations are > definitely looking at this as an option, a weapon of mass disruption." > > That kind of risk means major security changes are necessary, says > Christy. But because SCADA systems are largely owned by the private > sector, critical infrastructure like power plants and water systems > may remain vulnerable until the problem affects profits--or leads to > disaster. Christy argues that we can't wait that long: His unofficial > opinion is that SCADA needs government regulation. > > "The government mandates fire sprinklers. Those cost builders money, > but they save property and lives," he says. "If critical > infrastructure is important to our national security, shouldn't there > be minimum standards it has to meet?" > > From stephen at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 25 16:15:11 2007 From: stephen at melbpc.org.au (stephen at melbpc.org.au) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 06:15:11 GMT Subject: [LINK] Free government pornography filter Message-ID: <20070825061511.20A271640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Student cracks $84m porn filter By Nick Higginbottom and Ben Packham, August 25, 2007 12:30am Schoolboy takes 30 minutes to bypass filter Leaves impression filter still working Cracks upgraded filter in 40 minutes A MELBOURNE schoolboy has cracked the Federal Government's new $84 million internet porn filter in minutes. Tom Wood, 16, said it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the Government's filter, released on Tuesday. Tom, a year 10 student at a southeast Melbourne private school, showed the Herald Sun how to deactivate the filter in a handful of clicks. Parents easily fooled His technique ensures the software's toolbar icon is not deleted, leaving parents under the impression the filter is still working. A former cyber bullying victim, Tom feared a computer-savvy child could work out the bypass and put it on the Internet for others to use. Tom, who spoke to Communications Minister Helen Coonan about cyber safety during a forum in May, said the Federal Government should have developed a better Australian made filter. "It's a horrible waste of money," he said. "They could get a much better filter for a few million dollars made here rather than paying overseas companies for an ineffective one." Cracks replacement filter In response to the Herald Sun's inquiries, the Government added an Australian designed filter, Integard, to the website yesterday, which Tom cracked within 40 minutes. Senator Coonan said the Government had anticipated children would try and find ways to get around the NetAlert filters, and suppliers were contracted to provided continuing updates. "The vendor is investigating the matter as a priority," Senator Coonan said. "Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm and ... traditional parenting skills have never been more important." Family First Senator Steve Fielding, a long-time campaigner for cyber safety, said cracking the software showed the need for compulsory filtering by Internet providers. "You need both. You need it at the ISP and at the PC level," Senator Fielding said. "The Government has not listened to common sense and it leaves kids exposed." The filters are designed to stop access to sites on a national blacklist, bar use of chat rooms, and can be tailored by parents to stop access to sites. Filters 'don't address bigger issues' Tom stressed the filters were missing the mark by a long way regardless of how easy they were to break. "Filters aren't addressing the bigger issues anyway," he said. "Cyber bullying, educating children on how to protect themselves and their privacy are the first problems I'd fix. "They really need to develop a youth-involved forum to discuss some of these problems and ideas for fixing them." The $189 million NetAlert scheme includes $84.4 million for the National Filter Scheme, plus funding for online policing, a help line, and education programs. The Government will also offer the option of filtering by internet service providers. Under its filter program, households can download the filter from netalert.gov.au or have it sent out on to them. -- Cheers, people Stephen Loosley Victoria, Australia From jwhit at janwhitaker.com Sat Aug 25 16:15:14 2007 From: jwhit at janwhitaker.com (Jan Whitaker) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 16:15:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Fwd: Input to OECD Message-ID: <672uje$5747ib@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> >OECD Public Consultation Open > >The OECD has launched an online public consultation process to receive input >on the proposed themes and issues of the upcoming OECD Ministerial to be >held in Seoul, Korea on June 17-18, 2008. The theme of the Ministerial is >the "Future of the Internet Economy." The Ministerial represents an >opportunity for high-level stakeholders from government, business, the >technical community, and civil society to consider broad social, economic >and technical trends shaping the development of the Internet Economy, and to >discuss policies that can respond to evolving societal needs. The Online >Public Consultation is one of a series of initiatives aimed at involving >non-governmental stakeholders in the OECD Ministerial meeting and in its >preparation. The public consultation will be open until Friday, September >14, 2007. > >OECD Online Public Consultation: Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au Sat Aug 25 17:06:52 2007 From: Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au (Roger Clarke) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:06:52 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Free government pornography filter In-Reply-To: <20070825061511.20A271640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070825061511.20A271640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: At 6:15 +0000 25/8/07, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: >Student cracks $84m porn filter >By Nick Higginbottom and Ben Packham, August 25, 2007 12:30am > Which of the following would you be prepared to vote for: >Family First Senator Steve Fielding: > ... a long-time campaigner for cyber >safety, said cracking the software showed the need for compulsory >filtering by Internet providers. >"You need both. You need it at the ISP and at the PC level," Senator >Fielding said. >"The Government has not listened to common sense and it leaves kids >exposed." [common sense in what sense???] Labor: [Can't quickly find it, but they've said some dumb, populist things about ISP-filtering.] Minister Helen Coonan: [Under pressure from the dumb right, but holding off their *really* dumb proposals for ISP-level filtering by wasting what to a government is a fairly small amount of money on a parental-choice implementation at workstation or home-network level. [And repeating ad nauseum the very reasonable statement that: >"Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm >and ... traditional parenting skills have never been more important." Tom Wood, 16: >"Cyber bullying, educating children on how to protect themselves and their >privacy are the first problems I'd fix. -- Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng Australian National University Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program University of Hong Kong Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Sat Aug 25 17:51:09 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:51:09 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Free government pornography filter In-Reply-To: References: <20070825061511.20A271640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <672uje$5754ri@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 05:06 PM 25/08/2007, you wrote: >Tom Wood, 16: >>"Cyber bullying, educating children on how to protect themselves and their >>privacy are the first problems I'd fix. I vote for this one and always have. Back in the first 'nanny state' project when Senator Dick was the Minister and EFA was campaigning to use a sensible approach to the internet bogeyman of porn, the phrase I used was 'teachable moment'. That is the role of parents, information facilitators like librarians, teachers, and possibly peers. The 16 y.o.'s idea to provide a forum for kids to help each other was I thought a pretty good one. Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From saliya at hinet.net.au Sat Aug 25 19:36:55 2007 From: saliya at hinet.net.au (Saliya Wimalaratne) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:36:55 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 11:04:01PM -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > > Many people who are blind and vision impaired have advocated for years for a way to vote with privacy. Electronic voting gives them this ability. And for the problems that exist, instead of saying "no, can't have this... [for whatever reason you want to insert here]", how about look at it from a human rights aspect and then think, "how can we make this safe and secure". Something quite a few here seem unable to think of. The problems and benefits with e-voting in the "traditional" sense have already been raised (to my mind, ad nauseum). I think the concerns related to tampering are sufficient justification to say 'not like that here, thanks'. Electronic-ise the voter input; keep the paper trail for the tallies. The output that gets counted needs to be verifiable by the voter. I don't believe that this need be a 'slippery slope' situation. Regards, Saliya From link at todd.inoz.com Sat Aug 25 21:16:13 2007 From: link at todd.inoz.com (Adam Todd) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:16:13 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Free government pornography filter In-Reply-To: References: <20070825061511.20A271640E@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <200708251120.l7PBKQNr031054@ah.net> At 05:06 PM 25/08/2007, Roger Clarke wrote: >Which of the following would you be prepared to vote for: > > >>Family First Senator Steve Fielding: Nope, not concerned about the family, concerned about ISPs and PCs. >Labor: >[Can't quickly find it, but they've said some dumb, populist things >about ISP-filtering.] Pffft. >Minister Helen Coonan: >>"Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm >>and ... traditional parenting skills have never been more important." Sure she's not Family First? >Tom Wood, 16: >>"Cyber bullying, educating children on how to protect themselves and their >>privacy are the first problems I'd fix. Gees they grow up so quick. Maybe it's time to lower the age for starting in politics. This kid looks like he's got the Portfolio of Education, Family Services, Children, Telecommunications and IT all ready to fly! He's got my vote! From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Sun Aug 26 18:19:28 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:19:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> Message-ID: <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> Saliya Wimalaratne wrote: > On Thu, Aug 23, 2007 at 11:04:01PM -0700, David Goldstein wrote: > >> Many people who are blind and vision impaired have advocated for years for a way to vote with privacy. Electronic voting gives them this ability. And for the problems that exist, instead of saying "no, can't have this... [for whatever reason you want to insert here]", how about look at it from a human rights aspect and then think, "how can we make this safe and secure". Something quite a few here seem unable to think of. >> > > The problems and benefits with e-voting in the "traditional" sense have > already been raised (to my mind, ad nauseum). Yep ... I have heard that the political term is "vomit point", as in "just when you think 'if I have to hear about it again I'll vomit', that's when the public starts to notice the issue. > I think the concerns > related to tampering are sufficient justification to say 'not like that > here, thanks'. > > Electronic-ise the voter input; keep the paper trail for the tallies. > The output that gets counted needs to be verifiable by the voter. > > I don't believe that this need be a 'slippery slope' situation. > Well ... I still don't see the urgent need to introduce the electronics, even for the input, with the exception of cases such as the blind. What's the "pitch"? The benefit? Something that's really worth the extra dollars? Let's do the envelope budget. There are roughly 8,000 polling places in the country; let's allow ten "booths" to replace the current booths; and allow $5,000 per voting computer, one per voting booth. That's $50,000 per polling place, or $400 million nationwide. The last election cost $70 million, the next will cost $90 million, so what's the point of the other $310 million? Richard > Regards, > > Saliya > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > > From lucychili at gmail.com Sun Aug 26 23:01:36 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:31:36 +0930 Subject: [LINK] ooxml review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://www.arstdesign.com/articles/OOXML-is-defective-by-design.html via slashdot http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/25/2219202 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Mon Aug 27 09:25:56 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 09:25:56 +1000 Subject: [LINK] (Sydney) Travel card delayed yet again In-Reply-To: <46CE24AA.7050809@iimetro.com.au> References: <46CE24AA.7050809@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <20070826232923.6D6941246@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> At 10:22 AM 24/08/2007, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: >... This one was supposed to be ready for the Olympics - the Sydney >Olympics. Remember them? in 2000. So this project is running about >a decade late. ... I tried a demonstration of the Melbourne "myki" smart card tick system in May . This seemed to be workable, apart from a few problems with the accessibility of the terminals. I guess there will be no compatibility between the Melbourne and Sydney systems? ps: There is a "myki mobile discovery centre" travelling Victoria . This is a semitrailer mounted display booth, similar to the NRMA's Mobile Member Centre (MMC) . These units provide use the same technology as used for emergency command vehicles for police, fire and state emergency services. They provide office space, with their own power and telecommunications. Unfortunately the emergency services do not have enough of these vehicles . It shows an odd community priority when these vehicles are available for PR purposes but not for saving lives in emergencies. Perhaps after it is finished being used for selling tram tickets, the Victorian government could retain the vehicle for the emergency services. 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 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Mon Aug 27 14:44:29 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:44:29 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Big Brother Google postponed to September In-Reply-To: <7.1.0.9.0.20070731092945.01cf5238@tomw.net.au> References: <7.1.0.9.0.20070726142903.01adaa28@tomw.net.au> <7.1.0.9.0.20070731092945.01cf5238@tomw.net.au> Message-ID: <20070827044448.6F1D2358@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> At 09:47 AM 31/07/2007, I wrote (was:"Re: Social computing for government and business"): >...Roger's next seminar at the ANU is "Big Brother Google?", 27 >August 2007 ... Apologies, but this has been postponed to Wednesday, 19 September, 5:00pm at the ANU in Canberra. In the interim you can read his notes at . 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 From brd at iimetro.com.au Mon Aug 27 15:23:46 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:23:46 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter Message-ID: <26574.1188192226@iimetro.com.au> Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter ABC News 27 August 2007 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/27/2015813.htm A Melbourne teenager who has managed to circumvent the Federal Government's internet pornography filter has described it as "completely useless". Earlier this month Prime Minister John Howard announced that the filter would be made available free to every family. But 16-year-old Melbourne student Tom Wood says he was able to completely override the filter in half an hour. "I downloaded it on Tuesday to see how good it was, because for $84 million I would have expected a pretty unbreakable filter," he said. "Tried a few things, it took about half an hour and [the filter] was completely useless." Mr Wood described the situation as "extremely ridiculous". "If you ask most people in IT, the problem's not the filter, I'm sure they did it with the right intentions, it's just that they've spent such a great amount of money on it when they could've probably done something as effective for a few million dollars," he said. "But $84 million is just outrageous, I think." He says filters are just part of the solution. "Filtering pornography is going to play a part but the main things that need to be done are collaboration with kids, because the problems that we have are directly affecting kids, not adults, and unless you speak to them quite a lot you're not going to do anything with any effect," he said. "What really needs to happen is a lot of research done with kids and then education, compulsory in all levels of schooling, and awareness-raising for adults so we can get a more holistic approach and it'll be a lot more effective all over." -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From saliya at hinet.net.au Mon Aug 27 15:57:00 2007 From: saliya at hinet.net.au (Saliya Wimalaratne) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:57:00 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> On Sun, Aug 26, 2007 at 06:19:28PM +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote: > Saliya Wimalaratne wrote: > > > Well ... I still don't see the urgent need to introduce the electronics, > even for the input, with the exception of cases such as the blind. > What's the "pitch"? The benefit? Something that's really worth the extra > dollars? Hi Richard, You mean 'if we're still sticking to paper tallies, why electronics at all?' * Disabled voting, of course * Deletes the current trailer-tarp-sized voting paper * Early results indicators (non-authoritative, of course) * Making the whole process easier to understand and navigate * Graphical display of 'this' person and 'these' policies * Proper buttons labelled 'Donkey' and 'Informal' would be a few. No doubt there are more... Good enough to spend $300mil extra ? Perhaps, perhaps not. > Let's do the envelope budget. There are roughly 8,000 polling places in > the country; let's allow ten "booths" to replace the current booths; and > allow $5,000 per voting computer, one per voting booth. That's $50,000 > per polling place, or $400 million nationwide. The last election cost > $70 million, the next will cost $90 million, so what's the point of the > other $310 million? I'm presuming you're allowing for the cost of a booth fitted out with the latest dance/dance revolution or whack-a-pollie interactive voting selector rather than the simple pc+touchscreen+printer that I'd envisaged. I'd have budgeted closer to $1500 at current retail prices; this turns the guesstimates into about $120M (add another $16M for a braille printer at RRP at each polling place). And RRP is not what this could be done for; there's probably another 5% that could be skimmed fairly readily. The hardware could be reused at the next election, or donated to education, or... Whack-a-pollie _does_ sound like fun, though. Regards, Saliya From brd at iimetro.com.au Mon Aug 27 16:00:31 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:00:31 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft Office XML Formats? Defective by design Message-ID: <29844.1188194431@iimetro.com.au> This make interesting reading. Is it my cynicism or is this a train wreck waiting to happen to little o'l MS? Microsoft Office XML Formats? Defective by design http://www.arstdesign.com/articles/OOXML-is-defective-by-design.html St?phane Rodriguez, August 2007 Independent software vendor, file format expert Not affiliated to any pro-MS or anti-MS party/org/ass. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From brd at iimetro.com.au Mon Aug 27 16:10:54 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:10:54 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter Message-ID: <48007.1188195054@iimetro.com.au> There is supposed to be a large scale media blitz to trumpet the whole scheme. I haven't seen any evidence of it yet. There is a media release dated today: http://www.minister.dcita.gov.au/media/media_releases/netalerts_comprehensive_internet_safety_programme The media release has a phone number but no URL. Trying the obvious works OK: http://www.netalert.gov.au/home.html Available internet content filters are: Integard v1.04 Optenet Web Filter PC 9.6 Safe Eyes (available for PC and Apple Mac) -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au On Mon Aug 27 15:58 , Howard Lowndes sent: >I saw him on Ch7's Sunrise program and, for a 15yo, he came over as very >plausible and highly critical of the tack that the government has taken. > > >Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: >> Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter >> ABC News >> 27 August 2007 >> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/27/2015813.htm >> >> A Melbourne teenager who has managed to circumvent the Federal Government's internet pornography filter has described it as "completely useless". >> >> Earlier this month Prime Minister John Howard announced that the filter would be made available free to every family. >> >> But 16-year-old Melbourne student Tom Wood says he was able to completely override the filter in half an hour. >> >> "I downloaded it on Tuesday to see how good it was, because for $84 million I would have expected a pretty unbreakable filter," he said. >> >> "Tried a few things, it took about half an hour and [the filter] was completely useless." >> >> Mr Wood described the situation as "extremely ridiculous". >> >> "If you ask most people in IT, the problem's not the filter, I'm sure they did it with the right intentions, it's just that they've spent such a great amount of money on it when they could've probably done something as effective for a few million dollars," he said. >> >> "But $84 million is just outrageous, I think." >> >> He says filters are just part of the solution. >> >> "Filtering pornography is going to play a part but the main things that need to be done are collaboration with kids, because the problems that we have are directly affecting kids, not adults, and unless you speak to them quite a lot you're not going to do anything with any effect," he said. >> >> "What really needs to happen is a lot of research done with kids and then education, compulsory in all levels of schooling, and awareness-raising for adults so we can get a more holistic approach and it'll be a lot more effective all over." >> > >-- >Howard. >LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com> >When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; >When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. >-- >Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. > >_______________________________________________ >Link mailing list >Link at mailman.anu.edu.au >http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link >) From nospam at crm911.com Mon Aug 27 18:18:20 2007 From: nospam at crm911.com (Ash Nallawalla) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:18:20 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter In-Reply-To: <48007.1188195054@iimetro.com.au> References: <48007.1188195054@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <006c01c7e882$d46c7a60$7d456f20$@com> ITWire covered this yesterday: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/14157/1085/ From eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au Mon Aug 27 19:52:52 2007 From: eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au (Eric Scheid) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:52:52 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D1CA2E.2050400@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: On 27/8/07 4:45 AM, "Howard Lowndes" wrote: > then by the time the next election comes > around they will be obsolete and probably 50% won't fire up anyway, > having been too long in storage. which next election? just the next fed election ... why not also use them for state elections plus whatever else comes along ... and if electronic voting was more available could this lead to a time where citizen referenda are conducted more often than just when convenient (ie. in conjunction with an election)? (and would that be a good thing anyhoo ;-) e. From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Mon Aug 27 20:45:26 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:45:26 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> Message-ID: <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> Lord heavens above, reasonable debate! My ulcer thanks you, Sal... [snip] > * Making the whole process easier to understand and navigate > I wonder ... it surely depends on the interface designer. Yes, the "tablecloth" senate paper is a pain, but then again, how would we turn that into a GUI without causing confusion? And I frankly didn't budget for interface design and test in my $400 million guess... >> Let's do the envelope budget. There are roughly 8,000 polling places in >> the country; let's allow ten "booths" to replace the current booths; and >> allow $5,000 per voting computer, one per voting booth. That's $50,000 >> per polling place, or $400 million nationwide. The last election cost >> $70 million, the next will cost $90 million, so what's the point of the >> other $310 million? >> > > I'm presuming you're allowing for the cost of a booth fitted out with > the latest dance/dance revolution or whack-a-pollie interactive voting > selector rather than the simple pc+touchscreen+printer that I'd envisaged. > > I'd have budgeted closer to $1500 at current retail prices; There are a couple of reasons not to "go retail", so to speak. Cheifly, I would emphasise that we want boxes good for trucking anywhere in the country. Story: in the dim-distant past, one of my roles was to "harden" music equipment to make it transportable for rock & roll tours. I really wouldn't like the challenge of making any retail PC survive dirt roads and the Nullabour Plains when we want 8,000 or 16,000 or whatever make the journey and be "live" at a given moment on a given day. Even stuff that's built to be transported doesn't much like it. Also, for the $5 k per booth I was assuming you needed some software, some personnel around to hit alt-ctrl-del during the day, and so on. Cheers, RC From lucychili at gmail.com Mon Aug 27 20:58:55 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:28:55 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft Office XML Formats? Defective by design In-Reply-To: <46D29532.8060501@lannet.com.au> References: <29844.1188194431@iimetro.com.au> <46D29532.8060501@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: >From Norway http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/?p=3 From gdt at gdt.id.au Mon Aug 27 21:25:27 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:55:27 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft Office XML Formats? Defective by design In-Reply-To: <29844.1188194431@iimetro.com.au> References: <29844.1188194431@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <1188213927.3494.11.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> On Mon, 2007-08-27 at 14:00 +0800, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > This make interesting reading. > Is it my cynicism or is this a train wreck waiting to happen to little o'l MS? Hi Bernard, It's not a train wreck for MS -- they have got the only set of interoperating applications using OOXML. And since OOXML is really defined as the "output of Office" dealing with the problems from the poor design and worse specification falls upon the non-MS application. Regards, Glen From chris at sw.oz.au Mon Aug 27 21:42:19 2007 From: chris at sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:42:19 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 08:45:26PM +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote: > >* Making the whole process easier to understand and navigate > > > I wonder ... it surely depends on the interface designer. Yes, the > "tablecloth" senate paper is a pain, but then again, how would we turn > that into a GUI without causing confusion? And I frankly didn't budget > for interface design and test in my $400 million guess... First, abolish above the line voting. Offer the list of parties first and an option to choose the most preferred or least preferred. There will also be a choose your own option (though paper may be best for these people). When you choose the party, give an option to number up or down or some other order. After a certain number of columns are filled in, offer a "randomise rest" or "autopick" option as well as the next (least) preferred option. Allow party column order to be finally rearranged by dragging. Print a card with a summary of the steps and the actual vote. Chris From chris at sw.oz.au Mon Aug 27 21:43:46 2007 From: chris at sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:43:46 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <20070827114346.GF1459@sw.oz.au> Why wouldn't we use the TAB network for elections - it's more or less the same kind of activity and it even has the printed voter receipt... From stil at stilgherrian.com Mon Aug 27 21:55:21 2007 From: stil at stilgherrian.com (Stilgherrian) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:55:21 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <20070827114346.GF1459@sw.oz.au> Message-ID: On 27/8/07 9:43 PM, "Chris Maltby" wrote: > Why wouldn't we use the TAB network for elections - it's more or less the > same kind of activity and it even has the printed voter receipt... Excellent, saves a step in the process of "going to vote and then to the pub for a beer afterwards"! Stil -- Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/ Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia mobile +61 407 623 600 fax +61 2 9516 5630 ABN 25 231 641 421 From brendansweb at optusnet.com.au Mon Aug 27 22:46:58 2007 From: brendansweb at optusnet.com.au (Brendan Scott) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:46:58 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter In-Reply-To: <26574.1188192226@iimetro.com.au> References: <26574.1188192226@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46D2C7C2.1030509@optusnet.com.au> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter > ABC News > 27 August 2007 > http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/27/2015813.htm > > [] > "But $84 million is just outrageous, I think." Is that figure real? I can't, for the life of me, understand how they could spend so much even on 3 filters. B From grove at zeta.org.au Mon Aug 27 23:57:09 2007 From: grove at zeta.org.au (grove at zeta.org.au) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:57:09 +1000 (EST) Subject: [LINK] Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter In-Reply-To: <46D2C7C2.1030509@optusnet.com.au> References: <26574.1188192226@iimetro.com.au> <46D2C7C2.1030509@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Aug 2007, Brendan Scott wrote: > Is that figure real? > > I can't, for the life of me, understand how they could spend so much even on 3 filters. It must be some sort of nation-wide site license! rachel -- Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia grove at zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html Will you tolerate this? Return Hew Raymond Griffiths now... "Who do you trust?" - John W Howard From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Tue Aug 28 09:14:32 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:14:32 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Wikipedia editing by the Australian government In-Reply-To: <46CE8A1C.6040207@ramin.com.au> References: <20070824054228.7BBEF17104@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> <46CE7826.5030808@iimetro.com.au> <46CE8A1C.6040207@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: <20070827231507.B501CAEE7@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 05:34 PM 24/08/2007, Marghanita da Cruz wrote: >Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: >>stephen at melbpc.org.au quoted: >>>... >>>Wikiscanner tracks 126 edits by PM's staff ... > >Seems that some of these may not have been official changes, just >people using company resources... According to a later report, Dr Peter Shergold, head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, claimed the network address used for editing the Wikipedia was not a PM&C one and no one in his department, or the PMs office, made the changes . However, the Wikipedia records show that a change was made to the entry for Peter Costello on 28 June 2007 to remove "(AKA "Captain Smirk")" using the IP address 210.193.176.115 . The Australia Pacific Network Information Centre has this address is allocated to "Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet" . In 1995/96 I wrote the Defence Department guidelines on the use of the web and Internet, as cited at SEARCC'98: . It was a tricky business, not just a matter of banning web sites on how to play golf or make bombs, as both these activities were part of official defence jobs. I don't know if the rules have been revised since them to cover Wikipedia, but use of a government computer system for party political purposes is clearly inappropriate. Isolated incidents by misguided middle level or junior staff could be dealt with by internal disciplinary procedures. But if senior staff are involved either in sanctioning the work, or later covering it up, this will need investigation by the AFP. Misuse of a government computer system is a crime. Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150 Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309 http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617 From kauer at biplane.com.au Tue Aug 28 09:22:34 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:22:34 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <1188256954.19785.21.camel@karl> On Tue, 2007-08-28 at 06:30 +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > Now, think about teaching dear Aunt Maud what you have just proposed. > You've just dumped a whole lot more work on the polling place staff. Now think about Aunt Maud being blind... Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From marghanita at ramin.com.au Tue Aug 28 09:40:31 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:40:31 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46D360EF.9090301@ramin.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > > Now, think about teaching dear Aunt Maud what you have just proposed. > You've just dumped a whole lot more work on the polling place staff. Dear, Aunt Maud may not be as simple as she may lead you to believe, she is probably resigned to the fact that the whole election is a bit of a joke. After all, she has probably lived through more elections and seen more politicians and governments come and go, than you. Not to mention, pushed more prams and changed more nappies on dodgy pavements and in inconvenient public toilets. The problem we have is not access to information or technology but being well informed. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Tue Aug 28 09:58:33 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:58:33 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D36304.6080702@lannet.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> <46D360EF.9090301@ramin.com.au> <46D36304.6080702@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46D36529.2050303@ramin.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > I'm not corcerned about her comprehension of the politics or the > personalities, just her comprehension of the proposed technological > process. Her comprehension is fine - she probably just doesn't trust it and would prefer to chat to a nice young man like yourself. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Tue Aug 28 10:05:59 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:05:59 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D36274.30500@lannet.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> <1188256954.19785.21.camel@karl> <46D36274.30500@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46D366E7.4000507@ramin.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > > > Karl Auer wrote: >> On Tue, 2007-08-28 at 06:30 +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: >>> Now, think about teaching dear Aunt Maud what you have just proposed. >>> You've just dumped a whole lot more work on the polling place staff. >> >> Now think about Aunt Maud being blind... > > It strikes me that voice synthesis and recognition, in a private > environment, might be a means that has not been considered - it may > still be a problem for someone with limited English skills, albeit > sufficient to qualify to vote. The idea of a [human facilitated] confessional (anonymity for both priest and client) struck me as a possibility. With regard to language, it is just literacy in the roman script that is required - not fluency in English. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From planetjim at gmail.com Tue Aug 28 10:14:29 2007 From: planetjim at gmail.com (jim birch) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:14:29 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft Office XML Formats? Defective by design In-Reply-To: <1188213927.3494.11.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> References: <29844.1188194431@iimetro.com.au> <1188213927.3494.11.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> Message-ID: <39e534e70708271714t43552300l5e7c3527463b3ab2@mail.gmail.com> On 27/08/07, Glen Turner wrote: > > It's not a train wreck for MS As far as MS are concerned, needing an army of programmers to negotiate a file format is ideal, since they can afford it and everyone else will fail at catch up to varying degrees or drop out. It's what they've been doing all along, but now in XML. Jim From chris at sw.oz.au Tue Aug 28 11:30:36 2007 From: chris at sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:30:36 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070828013036.GM1459@sw.oz.au> On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 06:30:54AM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > Now, think about teaching dear Aunt Maud what you have just proposed. > You've just dumped a whole lot more work on the polling place staff. I wasn't advocating it - just outlining an interface that might make use of a "smart" device to assist people exercise a complex choice more meaningfully. An easier way to solve the problem would be to adopt NZ/German style MMP voting for a single chamber and dump the Senate and all its representational shortcomings entirely. My own choice would be to combine MMP with a preferential voting system. The essence is that an easy automated voting system implies a more understandable, and therefor easier, manual system. Chris From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Tue Aug 28 11:47:26 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:47:26 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <20070828013036.GM1459@sw.oz.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> <20070828013036.GM1459@sw.oz.au> Message-ID: <46D37EAE.5010402@ozemail.com.au> Chris Maltby wrote: > On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 06:30:54AM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > >> Now, think about teaching dear Aunt Maud what you have just proposed. >> You've just dumped a whole lot more work on the polling place staff. >> > > I wasn't advocating it - just outlining an interface that might make > use of a "smart" device to assist people exercise a complex choice > more meaningfully. > > An easier way to solve the problem would be to adopt NZ/German style > MMP voting for a single chamber and dump the Senate and all its > representational shortcomings entirely. My own choice would be to > combine MMP with a preferential voting system. > Isn't it putting the cart and the horse in the wrong order, to propose a revised electoral system so that it enables us to use electronics? RC > The essence is that an easy automated voting system implies a more > understandable, and therefor easier, manual system. > > Chris > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > > From brd at iimetro.com.au Tue Aug 28 11:56:15 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:56:15 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Tax office gets tough on file privacy Message-ID: <26226.1188266175@iimetro.com.au> It looks as though they use an approach based upon policy and "after the event" detection. Wouldn't it be better to use a pro-active controlled access strategy? It is unlikely that their applications can support such a strategy and would mean a complete re-design of their environment. Which is why it won't happen. Tax office gets tough on file privacy Ben Woodhead August 28, 2007 Australian IT http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22317999-15306,00.html FRAUD detection systems have uncovered a rash of privacy breaches at the Australian Taxation Office as employees flout tough data protection rules despite ongoing monitoring and training. The sweeps of data access logs led to three sackings during the 2007 financial year and another nine staff resigned after the ATO detected unauthorised access to taxpayer records. The breaches came despite extensive privacy education programs at the agency and closely matched the 24 instances of tax officers inappropriately accessing client information that were uncovered in the 2006 financial year. "While no level of unauthorised access is acceptable, in an organisation of about 22,000 people it is inevitable that a very small number of people will be tempted to do the wrong thing," an ATO spokeswoman said. "Access to taxpayer records is limited to staff members who have a business need to access that information. Accessing taxpayer records, including an officer's own records, those of friends, relatives or others, is unauthorised access." The latest privacy breaches were detected during systematic checks of access to taxpayer records, which can trigger probes with powerful data mining tools if instances of inappropriate access are suspected. The systems used by the ATO, whose fraud awareness training has been taken up by international revenue collection agencies, are similar to those deployed at other federal agencies and departments including Medicare Australia and the Child Support Agency. Last week the agency and Medicare confirmed that they had uncovered dozens of instances of employees spying on client records after they upgraded computer systems used to monitor information access. The agency is considering whether to pursue criminal charges against three workers who resigned after they were found accessing customer records without proper authorisation. Medicare confirmed 49 instances of inappropriate access during the 2007 financial year and is investigating another 35 possible breaches during the period. The agency strengthened its fraud protection systems in November while Medicare introduced a new detection platform modelled on Centrelink data matching rules last financial year. A number of other federal agencies, such as the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, use software systems to monitor and track unauthorised access to client records. The tax office spokeswoman said the agency did not consider all cases of inappropriate access to records to be privacy breaches. "A breach of privacy is where records of others have been accessed without knowledge or permission," she said. "Sixteen of the cases involved a breach of privacy." The spokeswoman said the tax office pursued court action against four employees caught breaching taxpayer privacy. The employees were found guilty and received sentences ranging from good behaviour bonds to prison terms. Disciplinary action against other tax officers caught in the sweep included fines, pay cuts, demotions, counselling and a letter of caution from the Director of Public Prosecutions. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From chris at sw.oz.au Tue Aug 28 12:24:28 2007 From: chris at sw.oz.au (Chris Maltby) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:24:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <46D37EAE.5010402@ozemail.com.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> <46D3347E.6040905@lannet.com.au> <20070828013036.GM1459@sw.oz.au> <46D37EAE.5010402@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <20070828022428.GQ1459@sw.oz.au> > Chris Maltby wrote: > >An easier way to solve the problem would be to adopt NZ/German style > >MMP voting for a single chamber and dump the Senate and all its > >representational shortcomings entirely. My own choice would be to > >combine MMP with a preferential voting system. On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 11:47:26AM +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote: > Isn't it putting the cart and the horse in the wrong order, to propose a > revised electoral system so that it enables us to use electronics? > >The essence is that an easy automated voting system implies a more > >understandable, and therefor easier, manual system. That was what I was hoping to convey with the second sentence - but not as well as I could have. A good voting system that maximises the informed participation of the most voters will probably also be one that's easy to automate because it's easy to implement manually... the irony is that adressing this more important problem may well make automation even less relevant. Chris From rick at praxis.com.au Tue Aug 28 12:30:46 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:30:46 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft Office XML Formats? Defective by design In-Reply-To: <39e534e70708271714t43552300l5e7c3527463b3ab2@mail.gmail.com> References: <29844.1188194431@iimetro.com.au> <1188213927.3494.11.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> <39e534e70708271714t43552300l5e7c3527463b3ab2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46D388D6.1070805@praxis.com.au> jim birch wrote: > On 27/08/07, Glen Turner wrote: >> It's not a train wreck for MS > > > As far as MS are concerned, needing an army of programmers to negotiate a > file format is ideal, since they can afford it and everyone else will fail > at catch up to varying degrees or drop out. It's what they've been doing > all along, but now in XML. It is far worse than that. As pointed out in the dessenting article, Microsoft is shoe-horning proprietary (secret) technologies as well as ensuring that things like VML are ill-defined. Proprietary and ill-defined specifications in an open standard are tautological. No matter how big an army of programmers one has, one simple cannot guess the missing specifications and hope to implement them. Read the above article, esp. 4) VML isn't XML [unspecified Office-specific configuration strings] 5) Open packaging parts minefield 7) Many ways to get in trouble [unfactored mass of Powerpoint,Word,Excel duplications] 8) Windows dates [undocumented formatting patterns] 10) A world of ZIP+OLE files pi.e. encrypted OLE != encrypted ZIP] 11) BIFF is gone...not! [undocumented proprietary app-specific] 13) ECMA 376 documents just do not exist [binary data is added to "standard" documents] If you weren't afraid, be very afraid. Especially if you plan on implementing this horse cart of legacy, secretive and under-specified bollocks. The other seven points raised have very valid concerns of their own and will indeed make it almost impossible to implement by anyone except Microsoft. Example in point, "12) Document backwards compatibility subject to neutrino radioactivity" which raises an ancient issue already discussed to death on Link: incompatibilities amongst the various generations of Office. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. -- Mark Twain From saliya at hinet.net.au Tue Aug 28 12:54:14 2007 From: saliya at hinet.net.au (Saliya Wimalaratne) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:54:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> References: <219172.1705.qm@web50509.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20070825093655.GA11496@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D13790.5090806@ozemail.com.au> <20070827055700.GE22137@netspace.hinet.net.au> <46D2AB46.3090609@ozemail.com.au> <20070827114219.GE1459@sw.oz.au> Message-ID: <20070828025414.GA15005@netspace.hinet.net.au> On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 09:42:19PM +1000, Chris Maltby wrote: > On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 08:45:26PM +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote: > > >* Making the whole process easier to understand and navigate > > > > > I wonder ... it surely depends on the interface designer. Yes, the > > "tablecloth" senate paper is a pain, but then again, how would we turn > > that into a GUI without causing confusion? And I frankly didn't budget > > for interface design and test in my $400 million guess... > > First, abolish above the line voting. Hi Chris, Have to disagree: one of the first requirements in my book would be backward compatibility (that is, let people draw numbers in boxes on the screen if they want to). That also has the benefit of being easiest to implement :) The other problem with this is that any time you make people do more work you increase rejection rates. There's no need for 'doing more work' to be tied to 'electronic voting' - if above-the-line voting _should_ be abolished; it should be done separately... > Offer the list of parties first and an option to choose the most > preferred or least preferred. There will also be a choose your own > option (though paper may be best for these people). When you choose the > party, give an option to number up or down or some other order. After a > certain number of columns are filled in, offer a "randomise rest" or > "autopick" option as well as the next (least) preferred option. Allow > party column order to be finally rearranged by dragging. I think that by discussion and review (including external review) such a process could be refined very quickly to something that would be readily understood by the majority of voters. I don't know whether it would end up exactly like this - but there are a few things here that I'd certainly like to see. > Print a card with a summary of the steps and the actual vote. Yep. Regards, Saliya From lucychili at gmail.com Tue Aug 28 13:00:34 2007 From: lucychili at gmail.com (Janet Hawtin) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:30:34 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Microsoft Office XML Formats? Defective by design In-Reply-To: <46D388D6.1070805@praxis.com.au> References: <29844.1188194431@iimetro.com.au> <1188213927.3494.11.camel@roma.44ansell.gdt.id.au> <39e534e70708271714t43552300l5e7c3527463b3ab2@mail.gmail.com> <46D388D6.1070805@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: ianal I think it will also be a concern in AU specifically because our new copyright act does not have Fair Use or Fair Dealing around interaction with DRM or TPM (technological protection measures) or around developing tools which interoperate with those kinds of things. This is just a Janet thought but I can't see why the following situation could not occur. Person A uses ooxml and maps for use with other data. MS or the client or person A deems that some component of that set has a TPM. Given it is being talked about as a means to do transactions some kind of TPM is probable? OOXML doesnt match on time, date or other fundamental existing standards so it will need to be interoperated with in very granular fashion in order to ensure data integrity. This means that if something is deemed a TPM developing a tool which interfaces can be deemed a felony if anyone uses it to infringe copyright. If the client hires a competing person to make the data interoperable with a second system anyone using the means to unpack the TPM around the data can be deemed a felon if anyone else decides that there is a copyright infringement in the process. Because person A developed a means to interoperate which might be being used by other people. This person is especially vulnerable because they are liable if a 3rd party uses the means to unpack the data. Regardless whether their own use of the process was approved or supported. imho AU participants have sod all room to move around these technologies and seem to me to be totally dependent on ongoing goodwill with all parties for their work to be lawful. Especially given that if there is legal action between MS and the person any existing legal protection for interoperating is void. This to me makes it very difficult for the client who's data it is and for independent developers to use the technologies in a way which is not compromising long term. This is why I am hopeful that Standards Australia recognises Australia's safe legal participation as a core value. Legal safety should be a deciding criterion for what an SA recognised standard offers AU developers and AU data assets. Other nations will be using different copyright models and may be able to afford doubt. Janet From brd at iimetro.com.au Tue Aug 28 16:02:20 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:02:20 +0800 Subject: [LINK] (no subject) Message-ID: <31057.1188280940@iimetro.com.au> Hmmm, 1500 cards and they can't get it working. Just think of the problems if they had 16million. I wonder if Thales have bid for the Access Card project? ANd I really liked this piece of journalism: "They then visualised me out of the building." APEC pass farce: it's no go Edmund Tadros August 28, 2007 - 2:20PM SMH http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/apec-pass-farce-its-no-go/2007/08/28/1188067091460.html The security accreditation cards for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum have stopped working, hours after the APEC Taskforce began issuing them. APEC staff at the Sydney Exhibition and Convention Centre were forced to abandon a card-swipe computer and confirm the identity of individuals visually. The computers stopped working about 11.30am with a staff member saying it would be down for "about two hours". But an APEC Taskforce spokeswoman said the system was down for less than an hour. "We haven't compromised our security by going through a visual id check," she said. "The computer system was out for less than an hour, so we were on visual id check for less than an hour." The 1500 journalists expected into Sydney for the summit have all had to register and receive a security identification card. Many people who work and live the APEC security areas have also had to register and undergo a security check for the summit. Fairfax staff member Michael Johnson said he was waiting to exit the building when the system stopped working. "There is an exit where you are meant to scan your brand new pass and to walk out," he said. "You are meant to place your pass on the reader and ideally the person behind the counter can see your pass and it comes up as acceptable on a computer. "But just as I was walking out it worked a couple of times and then it stopped working." Fearing the problem was with his card, Mr Johnson had his card reissued at the centre. But by that stage staff had confirmed the problem with the computer system. "An official came over and said to the staff 'We're on visual now'," Mr Johnson said. "I said 'Would this be a problem for long?' and he said: 'It'll be down for the next two hours and after that it'll work.' "They then visualised me out of the building." Mr Johnson said an APEC staff member said the database, run by the defence company Thales Australia, was not uploading correctly to the APEC computers. The Herald has been told that there had been numerous problem with the APEC registration website run by Thales with many pages not correctly capturing the data. Thales Australia referred questions to the APEC Taskforce. Comment is being sought from the APEC Taskforce. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From gdt at gdt.id.au Wed Aug 29 03:43:15 2007 From: gdt at gdt.id.au (Glen Turner) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:13:15 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Teen hacks 'useless' Govt porn filter In-Reply-To: <46D2C7C2.1030509@optusnet.com.au> References: <26574.1188192226@iimetro.com.au> <46D2C7C2.1030509@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <1188322995.31442.33.camel@andromache> On Mon, 2007-08-27 at 22:46 +1000, Brendan Scott wrote: > > "But $84 million is just outrageous, I think." > > Is that figure real? > I can't, for the life of me, understand how they could spend so much even on 3 filters. It seems to be for the entire National Filter Scheme. It includes - the software - the block lists, with updates - tech support from the manufacturer - help line at NetAlert for "pre-sales" and ordering across three years. It's unclear if the amount handed to the software manufacturers is volume-related, and thus if the $84m is a cautious estimate. Doubtless we'll find out more should Rudd win and Senate Estimates be held. Although NetAlert is a private company, so we won't get to see those most in the know asked the tough questions. But to answer your question, there go three very lucky software companies. It's a bit disappointing from a consumer protection point of view that the government didn't modify some terms of the EULAs. Most people downloading $0 software wouldn't have expected it to bring an unlimited indemnification liability. There's an even better hack than Tom's. Just download and install the filter before your parents do. Then you'll know the admin password. Now set the filter to allow everything. If the filter is good then your parents won't be able to remove the filter or alter its settings. Of course, you may be sent to your bedroom until you cough up the password :-) Still waiting for the other shoe to drop. The one where the recommended filter stops access to government programmes, say the cervical cancer programme. With the large number of vanity domains the government uses now it won't be possible for them to pre-screen all of the AU government websites out of the lists. Fielding was jumping up and down about this showing that ISPs need to do filtering. Which is a bit of a joke given the poor take-up of Optus' filtered product (about 2% of their customer base, so <0.5% of Internet subscribers). It's unclear to me why he thinks all ISPs need to provide a filtered feed -- surely those people that care can sign up with Optus? And if there's enough of those them other ISPs won't be slow in developing competing product. The Internet has been around now for a decade++. The Internet has been unfiltered all that time. Notice any of the dire consequences that we're told should await us? Those bad things the Internet has bought with it can't be fixed by filters. Worse luck, or we'd have done it by now. Cheers, Glen From brd at iimetro.com.au Wed Aug 29 09:26:00 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:26:00 +0800 Subject: [LINK] Labor pledges to kill off Access Card Message-ID: <60956.1188343560@iimetro.com.au> Labor doesn't seem to have said what it would do instead of the Access Card. One of the problems it was supposed to have addressed was that the existing Medicare card system needs replacing. It's old technology and there are too many fraudulent cards out there. Maybe they will just replace the Medicare Card with a smart card. That doesn't need legislation, so they can just get on with it. Labor pledges to kill off Access Card Annabel Stafford August 29, 2007 The Age http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/labor-pledges-to-kill-off-access-card/2007/08/28/1188067111116.html The $1.1 billion Access Card could soon be dead, with the Labor Party confirming it would kill off the proposal if it won this year's election. Coming after the Federal Government last week confirmed it would put off introducing legislation for the Access Card until after the election, Labor has confirmed a Rudd government would scrap the idea. "As far as we're concerned, (the Access Card) is dead," Labor human services spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said. Voters worried about the card now had a clear choice between a Coalition government that would introduce the smartcard ? which would replace up to 17 social services cards and be required by anyone wanting to access government payments ? and one that would not, Ms Plibersek said. She accused the Government of "doing everything it can to minimise the Access Card as an election issue ? (ever since) it became obvious that it was not a popular proposal". Labor's confirmation that it would scrap the card ? and any similar proposals ? came as a new report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner suggested Australians may be warming to the idea. The survey of 1503 people found 63 per cent were happy with the Government giving them a unique identifying number, compared with 53 per cent in 2004. And 80 per cent were happy for government departments to share information about them, up from 71 per cent in 2004. One of the fears raised by privacy advocates and opposition parties was that under the Access Card proposal, information held across several government departments could be combined through the use of the unique identifying numbers, effectively creating a "super-database" of information. Ms Plibersek denied the Privacy Commissioner's report suggested Australians were now more open to the Access Card. The survey did not ask specifically about the card, and, in any case, "when the Australia Card was first debated, the opposition to it was not big," she said. "It took a year of public debate to really shift attitudes on the Australia Card, but as people learnt more about it, their concerns were heightened." Labor has argued that the way the Access Card is designed, it would turn into a de facto identity card much like the failed Australia Card. Ms Plibersek said Labor was not against the use of smartcard technology to deliver some government services. But a single card required by everyone who wanted to access services ? and supported by a database holding information about all card holders ? was simply an ID card by another name, she said. Under a Labor government, there would be "no super-database that contains all the information about a person and no effective ID card that you have to carry all the time," she said. Ms Plibersek also questioned Government estimates that the Access Card could save up to $3 billion over 10 years by cutting down on fraud, saying such claims were overblown. "The Government has made very favourable assumptions about what (the card) would cost and what it would save (in prevented fraud)," she said. "Even without the objection to privacy implications, the card was going to cost a lot of money for a very questionable benefit." -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From ivan at itrundle.com Wed Aug 29 10:06:27 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:06:27 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Banking websites minimum requirements Message-ID: Dear Linkers After being stonewalled by the Commonwealth Bank e-mail support staff after suggesting that their website could be dramatically improved with minimal effort so that Mac OS X users share the same experience as their Windows brethren, and being told to check the site's recommended browsers for the site (which I had already done beforehand, which is why I was writing to them) - I thought that I'd check what was required for internet banking, across the major bank sites. Here's what I found, direct from each bank's support pages. It's patently laughable for some of the banks listed here, and demonstrates that many of us use internet banking in spite of their efforts. Full marks to Westpac for at least acknowledging that in the interests of security, the latest browsers should be used: and their general website reflects the attention to detail here (it works across browsers, across platforms). Commonwealth Bank Windows: IE 5.0 or IE 6.0 Mac OS X: Netscape 7.2 Westpac Windows: IE 7.00, Firefox 2.00 Mac OS X: Safari 2.00, Firefox 2.00 ANZ Windows: IE 5.5 and above, Netscape 7.0 and Firefox Mac OS X: Safari 1.2 NAB Windows: IE5.5 and above, Netscape 7.0x or 7.2, Firefox 1.0x Mac OS X: Netscape 7.0 or 7.2, Safari 1.0x, Firefox 1.0x St George Windows: IE 6 and 7, Firefox 1.0 and above, Netscape 7.02 Mac OS X: Safari 1.0 and above, Firefox 1.0 and above Bendigo Bank Windows: IE 5.5 and above, Netscape 7.0 and above Mac OS X: IE 5.2.3, Safari It's not surprising that some banks are suggesting the use of browsers that are no longer supported: this is a reflection of the fact that they don't care about their customers too much, and not enough to suggest that they use more-secure browsers in general. However, I think that this information should be recorded and published in a web-accessible table so that prospective customers can make comparisons and choose their internet bank accordingly. Note that I make no judgement about what security features are in place for internet banking, which deserves attention in itself. iT From marghanita at ramin.com.au Wed Aug 29 10:06:43 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:06:43 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Labor pledges to kill off Access Card In-Reply-To: <60956.1188343560@iimetro.com.au> References: <60956.1188343560@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46D4B893.7070008@ramin.com.au> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > > Labor doesn't seem to have said what it would do instead of the Access Card. > > One of the problems it was supposed to have addressed was that the existing Medicare card system needs replacing. It's old technology and > there are too many fraudulent cards out there. > > Maybe they will just replace the Medicare Card with a smart card. That doesn't need legislation, so they can just get on with it. > Not to mention that Medicare was one of Federal Labor's greatest achievements. However, the medicare card itself now seems irrelevant - bulk billing (except perhaps in the proposed NSW GP clinics) seems to have virtually disappeared and this was its original purpose. There is also the private health insurance system to now be integrated. And also the integration of medical records. did this make it to link? Ellison unlocks Medicare databases - MEDICARE patient and provider databases will be key sources of a healthcare identifier regime to support a shift to e-health programs. Marghanita > > Labor pledges to kill off Access Card > Annabel Stafford > August 29, 2007 > The Age > http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/labor-pledges-to-kill-off-access-card/2007/08/28/1188067111116.html > > The $1.1 billion Access Card could soon be dead, with the Labor Party confirming it would kill off the proposal if it won this year's election. > > Coming after the Federal Government last week confirmed it would put off introducing legislation for the Access Card until after the election, Labor has confirmed a Rudd government would scrap the idea. > > "As far as we're concerned, (the Access Card) is dead," Labor human services spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said. > > Voters worried about the card now had a clear choice between a Coalition government that would introduce the smartcard ??? which would replace up to 17 social services cards and be required by anyone wanting to access government payments ??? and one that would not, Ms Plibersek said. > > She accused the Government of "doing everything it can to minimise the Access Card as an election issue ??? (ever since) it became obvious that it was not a popular proposal". > > Labor's confirmation that it would scrap the card ??? and any similar proposals ??? came as a new report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner suggested Australians may be warming to the idea. > > The survey of 1503 people found 63 per cent were happy with the Government giving them a unique identifying number, compared with 53 per cent in 2004. And 80 per cent were happy for government departments to share information about them, up from 71 per cent in 2004. > > One of the fears raised by privacy advocates and opposition parties was that under the Access Card proposal, information held across several government departments could be combined through the use of the unique identifying numbers, effectively creating a "super-database" of information. > > Ms Plibersek denied the Privacy Commissioner's report suggested Australians were now more open to the Access Card. The survey did not ask specifically about the card, and, in any case, "when the Australia Card was first debated, the opposition to it was not big," she said. "It took a year of public debate to really shift attitudes on the Australia Card, but as people learnt more about it, their concerns were heightened." > > Labor has argued that the way the Access Card is designed, it would turn into a de facto identity card much like the failed Australia Card. > > Ms Plibersek said Labor was not against the use of smartcard technology to deliver some government services. But a single card required by everyone who wanted to access services ??? and supported by a database holding information about all card holders ??? was simply an ID card by another name, she said. > > Under a Labor government, there would be "no super-database that contains all the information about a person and no effective ID card that you have to carry all the time," she said. > > Ms Plibersek also questioned Government estimates that the Access Card could save up to $3 billion over 10 years by cutting down on fraud, saying such claims were overblown. > > "The Government has made very favourable assumptions about what (the card) would cost and what it would save (in prevented fraud)," she said. "Even without the objection to privacy implications, the card was going to cost a lot of money for a very questionable benefit." > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Wed Aug 29 10:29:51 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:29:51 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Blind voter demands secret vote In-Reply-To: <20070824035540.GV4898@taz.net.au> References: <46CE4FED.7050301@lannet.com.au> <20070824035540.GV4898@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <20070829003339.EC3C52062B@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 01:55 PM 24/08/2007, Craig Sanders wrote: >... in later news, a legless man sues his local council for not >providing footpaths that he can walk on. ... Australian law requires that a person with a disability get the same service as others, where feasible . So your "legless man" should have a reasonable expectation that their council will provide footpaths he can use, where this would not cost too much to do. The reason this has become an issue with voting is that previously there was no easy way to allow a blind person to vote in secret. Computer based systems are making that more feasible and so there are fewer excuses not to do it. This is much the same reason why accessible web sites are encouraged: it is relatively cheap and easy to do and so there are few excuses not to do it: . The ACT Electoral Commission put in a system for electronic voting in local government elections in Canberra in 2001 . The major polling stations were equipped for electronic voting and were used for pre-polling, polling on polling day and for the disabled. This made maximum use of the equipment and minimized the cost. The system was used for 8.3% of the votes . I used the system to vote in the last two elections and it worked fine. The system for the federal election is being built by the same company as did the ACT system. It will be more limited, only being used by the disabled at some polling stations. It will not be available for pre-polling or for other voters using those polling stations. A separate system from another company is to be used for voting by ADF and AFP personnel overseas (there has been worryingly little public reporting about the progress of that system). A way to reduce the cost of the electronic voting system would be to open pre-polling to anyone, not just those who would not able to vote on polling day. That way people could vote over several weeks and most of the votes could be collected using a few electronic polling stations. This would also weaken the ability of groups with large advertising budgets to try influence the election outcome using last minute saturation advertising. I think that would be a good thing, but it is unlikely that any political party in power would accept the idea, as they are generally one of the groups benefiting from the advertising. Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150 Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309 http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617 From rick at praxis.com.au Wed Aug 29 10:43:38 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:43:38 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Thales APEC security fiasco In-Reply-To: <31057.1188280940@iimetro.com.au> References: <31057.1188280940@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46D4C13A.30904@praxis.com.au> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > APEC pass farce: it's no go > Edmund Tadros > August 28, 2007 - 2:20PM > SMH > http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/apec-pass-farce-its-no-go/2007/08/28/1188067091460.html > > The security accreditation cards for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum have stopped working, hours after the APEC Taskforce began issuing them. [SNIP] This fiasco makes a mockery of ISO 9001 Quality Accreditation as claimed by Thales in their own brochure spruiking their large event security product. http://www.adi-limited.com/blank.html?./content/docs/brochures/civil/8pp_apec_2007_brochure_april_2007_lowres.pdf or http://tinyurl.com/33k569 The link is to a PDF document entitled "Security Solutions for Critical Infrastructure and Large Events". On page six read all about their supposed quality certification. I've worked in organisations with such certification and always found it an ongoing joke. Kind of like having MCSE credentials :) > The Herald has been told that there had been numerous problem with the APEC registration website run by Thales with many pages not correctly capturing the data. Quality accreditation or not, how hard is it to get a web site correct and then test it thoroughly these days? One really wonders. "It's not rocket surgery!" If you have under-qualified staff working on projects like Thale's, no amount of ISO 9001 accreditation is going to help out of the deep dark chasm dug by incompetence. The Thales web site is running on Microsoft-IIS/5.0, which is quite an old product, geared to MS Server 2000. But we all know that any quality system eschews the use of IIS and related infrastructure for one very good reason: THEY ARE INSECURE PRODUCTS! I feel a foxymoron coming on. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. -- Mark Twain From marghanita at ramin.com.au Wed Aug 29 11:37:15 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:37:15 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Thales APEC security fiasco In-Reply-To: <46D4C13A.30904@praxis.com.au> References: <31057.1188280940@iimetro.com.au> <46D4C13A.30904@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <46D4CDCB.10908@ramin.com.au> Rick Welykochy wrote: > Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > >> APEC pass farce: it's no go >> Edmund Tadros >> August 28, 2007 - 2:20PM >> SMH >> http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/apec-pass-farce-its-no-go/2007/08/28/1188067091460.html >> >> >> The security accreditation cards for the Asia-Pacific Economic >> Co-operation forum have stopped working, hours after the APEC >> Taskforce began issuing them. > > [SNIP] > > This fiasco makes a mockery of ISO 9001 Quality Accreditation as claimed by > Thales in their own brochure spruiking their large event security product. > > http://www.adi-limited.com/blank.html?./content/docs/brochures/civil/8pp_apec_2007_brochure_april_2007_lowres.pdf > > > or > > http://tinyurl.com/33k569 > > The link is to a PDF document entitled "Security Solutions for Critical > Infrastructure and Large Events". On page six read all about their > supposed quality certification. > > I've worked in organisations with such certification and always found > it an ongoing joke. Kind of like having MCSE credentials :) > >> The Herald has been told that there had been numerous problem with the >> APEC registration website run by Thales with many pages not correctly >> capturing the data. > > Quality accreditation or not, how hard is it to get a web site correct > and then test it thoroughly these days? One really wonders. > "It's not rocket surgery!" > > If you have under-qualified staff working on projects like Thale's, > no amount of ISO 9001 accreditation is going to help out of the > deep dark chasm dug by incompetence. > > The Thales web site is running on Microsoft-IIS/5.0, which is quite an > old product, geared to MS Server 2000. But we all know that any quality > system eschews the use of IIS and related infrastructure for one very > good reason: THEY ARE INSECURE PRODUCTS! > > I feel a foxymoron coming on. > Is there any mention of ISO 27001? Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From cas at taz.net.au Wed Aug 29 12:28:07 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:28:07 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Thales APEC security fiasco In-Reply-To: <46D4CDCB.10908@ramin.com.au> References: <31057.1188280940@iimetro.com.au> <46D4C13A.30904@praxis.com.au> <46D4CDCB.10908@ramin.com.au> Message-ID: <20070829022807.GA23761@taz.net.au> On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 11:37:15AM +1000, Marghanita da Cruz wrote: > Is there any mention of ISO 27001? > they're probably relying on RFC-1149 [1] for security - everyone knows Columbidae are incorruptible. [1] http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html craig -- craig sanders From kauer at biplane.com.au Wed Aug 29 13:21:24 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:21:24 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Churning broadband from Telstra? Message-ID: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> We just "churned" our broadband from Telstra Bigpond to iiNet. I rang today, a week or so after the event, to double check that the Telstra side was finished, gone, no more charges. Glad I did. The Telstra BigPond account was still active and was still costing us each month. Now I don't know if iiNet failed to carry out some step or other, but this is definitely a trap for young players. If you change ISP by "churning" (which is generally the cheapest way to do it), make sure, when the move is complete, that your old ISP has closed your account and is no longer charging you. Regards, K. PS: To their credit, Telstra backdated the account closure to the last date I used their ADSL. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From bpa at iss.net.au Wed Aug 29 13:56:09 2007 From: bpa at iss.net.au (Brenda Aynsley) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:26:09 +0930 Subject: [LINK] Churning broadband from Telstra? In-Reply-To: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> References: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> Message-ID: <46D4EE59.7040602@iss.net.au> Karl Auer wrote: > If you change ISP by "churning" (which is generally the cheapest way to > do it), make sure, when the move is complete, that your old ISP has > closed your account and is no longer charging you. I thought churning simply meant that it was a live broadband connection ready to be swapped to a new isp. I didnt think the new ISP had any responsibility, nor authority, to cancel your account with the former isp. cheers brenda -- Brenda Aynsley, FACS, PCP Director Oz Business Partners http://www.ozbusinesspartners.com/ Mobile:+61(0) 412 662 988 || Skype: callto://baynsley Phone:08 8357 8844 Fax:08 8272 7486 Nodephone:08 7127 0107 Chairman Pearcey Foundation, SA Committee www.pearcey.org.au Immediate Past Chairman ACS SA Branch www.acs.org.au/sa From ivan at itrundle.com Wed Aug 29 14:19:28 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:19:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Churning broadband from Telstra? In-Reply-To: <46D4EE59.7040602@iss.net.au> References: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> <46D4EE59.7040602@iss.net.au> Message-ID: On 29/08/2007, at 1:56 PM, Brenda Aynsley wrote: > Karl Auer wrote: > >> If you change ISP by "churning" (which is generally the cheapest >> way to >> do it), make sure, when the move is complete, that your old ISP has >> closed your account and is no longer charging you. > > I thought churning simply meant that it was a live broadband > connection ready to be swapped to a new isp. I didnt think the new > ISP had any responsibility, nor authority, to cancel your account > with the former isp. They usually work together on these things: my understanding when I churned and asked for an explanation of what is done and when is that the new ISP lets the old ISP know when the churn has taken place, so that a refund of any fees paid can be returned to the customer. When you ask for a churn to take place between consenting ISPs (and they both must consent to the process - a list of who presently accepts rapid transfer is here ), you effectively grant authority to both ISPs to arrange the transfer and account cancellation. Rapid transfers (churns) normally take 5 days, and a churn application is made by the new ISP usually 7 days before the end of your billing month, to reduce costs. It is worth noting here that the receiving ISP will be charged for the DSLAM reconnection, and the losing ISP will also be charged if the customers connection did not remain connected for a six-month period. These charges are usually passed on to the customer through a 'churn fee' and an 'early termination fee'. iT From gordonkeith at acslink.net.au Wed Aug 29 14:36:14 2007 From: gordonkeith at acslink.net.au (Gordon Keith) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:36:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Banking websites minimum requirements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200708291436.14313.gordonkeith@acslink.net.au> You didn't note which banks require their users to enable javascript, a major security concern, for them to work. Or do they all require it these days? On Wednesday 29 August 2007 10:06, Ivan Trundle wrote: > It's not surprising that some banks are suggesting the use of ? > browsers that are no longer supported: this is a reflection of the ? > fact that they don't care about their customers too much, and not ? > enough to suggest that they use more-secure browsers in general. > > However, I think that this information should be recorded and ? > published in a web-accessible table so that prospective customers can ? > make comparisons and choose their internet bank accordingly. Note ? > that I make no judgement about what security features are in place ? > for internet banking, which deserves attention in itself. -- Gordon Keith There are things that we know that we know, there are things that we know that we don't know and there are things that we don't know that we don't know. From cas at taz.net.au Wed Aug 29 14:45:48 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:45:48 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Churning broadband from Telstra? In-Reply-To: <46D4EE59.7040602@iss.net.au> References: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> <46D4EE59.7040602@iss.net.au> Message-ID: <20070829044548.GB23761@taz.net.au> On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 01:26:09PM +0930, Brenda Aynsley wrote: > Karl Auer wrote: > >> If you change ISP by "churning" (which is generally the cheapest way to >> do it), make sure, when the move is complete, that your old ISP has >> closed your account and is no longer charging you. yep, this is what is supposed to happen. > I thought churning simply meant that it was a live broadband connection > ready to be swapped to a new isp. I didnt think the new ISP had any > responsibility, nor authority, to cancel your account with the former isp. "fast-churning" is specifically between telstra and telstra resellers. there's no way that Telstra could claim to not know that the churn had happened because they have to be involved in the churn procedure. which is probably why they so promptly offered to fix the bill. similar if you're fast-churning between two different telstra resellers - all three (old isp, new isp, & telstra) are involved in and aware of the process. craig -- craig sanders And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it, you know they are just evil lies. -- Linus Torvalds From ivan at itrundle.com Wed Aug 29 15:04:08 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:04:08 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Banking websites minimum requirements In-Reply-To: <200708291436.14313.gordonkeith@acslink.net.au> References: <200708291436.14313.gordonkeith@acslink.net.au> Message-ID: <69C15E6C-6700-4E32-807F-8E815F9548CE@itrundle.com> On 29/08/2007, at 2:36 PM, Gordon Keith wrote: > You didn't note which banks require their users to enable > javascript, a major > security concern, for them to work. > > Or do they all require it these days? None state that they need it for the site to work. That is not to say that they do not need it, but given that most were fairly explicit about the software requirements, I'd say that it is unlikely that javascript is required. I obviously can't test all of the sites: I'm not particularly keen to open accounts with each bank. iT > > > On Wednesday 29 August 2007 10:06, Ivan Trundle wrote: >> It's not surprising that some banks are suggesting the use of >> browsers that are no longer supported: this is a reflection of the >> fact that they don't care about their customers too much, and not >> enough to suggest that they use more-secure browsers in general. >> >> However, I think that this information should be recorded and >> published in a web-accessible table so that prospective customers can >> make comparisons and choose their internet bank accordingly. Note >> that I make no judgement about what security features are in place >> for internet banking, which deserves attention in itself. > > -- > > Gordon Keith > > There are things that we know that we know, > there are things that we know that we don't know and > there are things that we don't know that we don't know. > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link at mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Ivan Trundle http://globallearning.com.au ivan at globallearning.com.au ph: +61 (0)2 6249 1344 mb: +61 (0)418 244 259 skype: callto://ivanovitchk From kauer at biplane.com.au Wed Aug 29 15:13:57 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:13:57 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Churning broadband from Telstra? In-Reply-To: <46D4EE59.7040602@iss.net.au> References: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> <46D4EE59.7040602@iss.net.au> Message-ID: <1188364437.32161.74.camel@karl> On Wed, 2007-08-29 at 13:26 +0930, Brenda Aynsley wrote: > Karl Auer wrote: > > > If you change ISP by "churning" (which is generally the cheapest way to > > do it), make sure, when the move is complete, that your old ISP has > > closed your account and is no longer charging you. > > > I thought churning simply meant that it was a live broadband connection > ready to be swapped to a new isp. I didnt think the new ISP had any > responsibility, nor authority, to cancel your account with the former isp. Perhaps you are right. However, I certainly assumed that removing the only reason for the account's existence - namely the broadband connection - would lead naturally to the demise of the account. I still think that that makes sense. Only my natural paranoia made me ring Telstra to check. My message was just a heads-up to those considering "churning" that they are indeed responsible for the subsequent termination of their old account. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From kauer at biplane.com.au Wed Aug 29 15:19:56 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:19:56 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Churning broadband from Telstra? In-Reply-To: References: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> <46D4EE59.7040602@iss.net.au> Message-ID: <1188364796.32161.81.camel@karl> > They usually work together on these things: my understanding when I > churned and asked for an explanation of what is done and when is that > the new ISP lets the old ISP know when the churn has taken place, so > that a refund of any fees paid can be returned to the customer. Hm - have you checked that you arenb't stil paying for the old account :-) > Rapid transfers (churns) normally take 5 days, and a churn > application is made by the new ISP usually 7 days before the end of > your billing month, to reduce costs. In my case I was most impressed - I had no loss of connectivity at all, except when I entered the new account details into the CPE and reset the connection. After maybe 20 seconds it was back up with the new account. Whatever Telstra and iiNet are doing, they should keep doing it. I was expecting a connectivity loss to tell me when the changeover was complete, so I only changed the CPE after phoning iiNet and having them tell me it was all in place and ready to go! Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From saliya at hinet.net.au Wed Aug 29 17:58:47 2007 From: saliya at hinet.net.au (Saliya Wimalaratne) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:58:47 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Churning broadband from Telstra? In-Reply-To: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> References: <1188357684.32161.61.camel@karl> Message-ID: <20070829075846.GA10948@netspace.hinet.net.au> On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 01:21:24PM +1000, Karl Auer wrote: > We just "churned" our broadband from Telstra Bigpond to iiNet. I rang > today, a week or so after the event, to double check that the Telstra > side was finished, gone, no more charges. > > Glad I did. > > The Telstra BigPond account was still active and was still costing us > each month. Now I don't know if iiNet failed to carry out some step or > other, but this is definitely a trap for young players. Hi Karl, Churn means transferring a working last-mile ADSL service from one provider to another. This isn't the same thing as Rapid Transfer, which is essentially doing the same thing in less time between participating ISPs on a Telstra wholesale service. In either case, changeover should be almost instantaneous when it is actually done - put the new credentials in the ADSL modem, and when the new session goes up it hits the new ISP's LAC/LNS - your session never sees the old ISP. When a 'losing' ISP receives a churn notification on an ADSL service, they are supposed to do whatever they need to (e.g. finalise billing) as of the churn date. The entity that operates the physical ADSL 'tail' notifies gaining and losing providers. In your situation "Telstra Wholesale" should have notified "Telstra Bigpond" of the change, alerting Bigpond to stop billing. You shouldn't have been charged _unless_ you were inside some type of contract (which I'm guessing you weren't). > PS: To their credit, Telstra backdated the account closure to the last > date I used their ADSL. Which they're required to do, of course. The only people that _don't_ get the protection afforded by various state and federal legislative instruments, ACMA Codes, and the TIO are ISPs, ironically :) :) Regards, Saliya From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Thu Aug 30 08:56:28 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:56:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Thales APEC security fiasco In-Reply-To: <46D4C13A.30904@praxis.com.au> References: <31057.1188280940@iimetro.com.au> <46D4C13A.30904@praxis.com.au> Message-ID: <20070829225835.98DACCCBA@heartbeat2.messagingengine.com> At 10:43 AM 29/08/2007, Rick Welykochy wrote: >Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > >>APEC pass farce: it's no go Edmund Tadros August 28, 2007 - 2:20PM SMH >>http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/apec-pass-farce-its-no-go/2007/08/28/1188067091460.html >>The security accreditation cards for the >>Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum have stopped working ... > >This fiasco makes a mockery of ISO 9001 Quality Accreditation ... The system used for the Olympic passes seemed to work well in 2000. About the only problem was that passes were so large it was difficult to hide them, as per security requirements, when not on duty. But then looking at the advice to media from APEC, perhaps you just need your pass to get a hotel discount: "Hotel Arrival - Media will be required to present their APEC Australia 2007? accreditation pass upon arrival or before departure at the nominated hotel in order to receive the special rates. If the APEC Australia 2007? accreditation pass is not presented, media representatives will be charged the standard hotel rate. ..." From: Media Operational Arrangements Newsletter For APEC Leaders Week, APEC, 21 May 2007, . ps: APEC also run a Business Travel Card Scheme for countries in the region, including Australia . 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 From brd at iimetro.com.au Thu Aug 30 09:37:39 2007 From: brd at iimetro.com.au (Bernard Robertson-Dunn) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:37:39 +0800 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. Message-ID: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> When I go to the Australian IT web site: http://www.australianit.news.com.au/ I get an IE warning message: "A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. Do you want to abort the script?" And then a dialog box with another warning "Out of memory at line: 56" I'm running a locked down corporte SOE, so I can't turn off javascript (which I assume is what is running) Can anyone with a non IE browser check out if it is just IE or a really badly designed web site (or both)? I've had a quick look at the source and I'm not an HTML expert but these lines caught my attention and keep repeating throughout the page: The redesigned Australian IT site is far less useful than it used to be, so, what with this inconvenience, I think I'll give it a miss in the future. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Sydney Australia brd at iimetro.com.au From ivan at itrundle.com Thu Aug 30 09:54:21 2007 From: ivan at itrundle.com (Ivan Trundle) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:54:21 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <93735050-93B7-40AA-9332-56287B57D44C@itrundle.com> On 30/08/2007, at 9:37 AM, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > When I go to the Australian IT web site: > http://www.australianit.news.com.au/ Home page loads okay, but slowly, with Safari/Mac. > > I get an IE warning message: > > "A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly. > If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. > > Do you want to abort the script?" > > And then a dialog box with another warning "Out of memory at line: 56" > > I'm running a locked down corporte SOE, so I can't turn off > javascript (which I assume is what is running) > > Can anyone with a non IE browser check out if it is just IE or a > really badly designed web site (or both)? And going to a subsequent page fails. It tries to load for more than 2 minutes, and it eventually stalls. > > The redesigned Australian IT site is far less useful than it used > to be, so, what with this inconvenience, I think I'll give it a > miss in the future. Ditto, not that I visited it much in the first place. From eleanor at pacific.net.au Thu Aug 30 10:18:51 2007 From: eleanor at pacific.net.au (Eleanor Lister) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:18:51 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46D60CEB.5000009@pacific.net.au> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > When I go to the Australian IT web site: > http://www.australianit.news.com.au/ > > I get an IE warning message: > works fine in FireFox 2 under Ubuntu Linux Feisty Fawn -- ------------ Eleanor Ashley Lister South Sydney Greens http://ssg.nsw.greens.org.au webmistress at ssg.nsw.greens.org.au From jwhit at melbpc.org.au Thu Aug 30 10:09:10 2007 From: jwhit at melbpc.org.au (Jan Whitaker) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:09:10 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <672uje$59udmn@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> At 09:37 AM 30/08/2007, you wrote: >Can anyone with a non IE browser check out if it is just IE or a >really badly designed web site (or both)? I have js blocked using FF2 Loaded fine, no advisories. There are scripts from three different sources that I'm allowing individually to see if I can spot it: - news.com.au - no problem, but allowing put through a fourth source: tiser.com.au - imrworldwide.com - no problem - roo.com - allowed the video player feed to load, was a long wait for ad.doubleclick.com to load and added a script from macromedia.com - tiser.com.au - no problem, tracked to the roo.com load after allowed. - macromedia.com - no problem. The problem could lie anywhere, but may be the doubleclick slowness. uh-oh. I opened the Telstra page and it crashed firefox! That hardly ever happens. It froze on loading something from ths.news.com.au . The error signature is: ModName: npswf32.dll . I tried to copy the error report, but that was too large in the window. I have saved the error report file if anyone wants to see it. When I reloaded FF, the page was viewable with no crashing. Jan Jan Whitaker JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria jwhit at janwhitaker.com business: http://www.janwhitaker.com personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ Writing Lesson #54: Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for guests. - JW, May, 2007 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 _ __________________ _ From wavey_one at yahoo.com Thu Aug 30 10:32:41 2007 From: wavey_one at yahoo.com (David Goldstein) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:32:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. Message-ID: <168369.77580.qm@web50505.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hurrah, for once Firefox wins! I regularly check Australian IT using Firefox 1.8.1.6 and haven't had one of the problems outlines. It's also FAST to download, as are Fairfax's IT pages. Cheers David http://technewsreview.com.au/ - for the best news and information on what's happening around the world online! ----- Original Message ---- From: Ivan Trundle To: brd at iimetro.com.au Cc: link at anu.edu.au Sent: Thursday, 30 August, 2007 9:54:21 AM Subject: Re: [LINK] The Australian IT site. On 30/08/2007, at 9:37 AM, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > When I go to the Australian IT web site: > http://www.australianit.news.com.au/ Home page loads okay, but slowly, with Safari/Mac. > > I get an IE warning message: > > "A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly. > If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. > > Do you want to abort the script?" > > And then a dialog box with another warning "Out of memory at line: 56" > > I'm running a locked down corporte SOE, so I can't turn off > javascript (which I assume is what is running) > > Can anyone with a non IE browser check out if it is just IE or a > really badly designed web site (or both)? And going to a subsequent page fails. It tries to load for more than 2 minutes, and it eventually stalls. > > The redesigned Australian IT site is far less useful than it used > to be, so, what with this inconvenience, I think I'll give it a > miss in the future. Ditto, not that I visited it much in the first place. _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link at mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sick of deleting your inbox? Yahoo!7 Mail has free unlimited storage. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html From rick at praxis.com.au Thu Aug 30 11:25:28 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:25:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> Message-ID: <46D61C88.9020101@praxis.com.au> Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: > When I go to the Australian IT web site: > http://www.australianit.news.com.au/ > > I get an IE warning message: > > "A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. > > Do you want to abort the script?" > > And then a dialog box with another warning "Out of memory at line: 56" I have no trouble with this page using Mozilla SeaMonkey on Mac OS X. But, I have Flash disabled. There are at least seven flash objects embedded in this page. I have found even one poorly written flash object can bring my entire machine to its knees, so seven ... urgh. No apologies to flash -- it sucks. > I've had a quick look at the source and I'm not an HTML expert but these lines caught my attention and keep repeating throughout the page: > > string ... which if it is inside a document.write means a premature closure and all sorts of buggy behaviour. You don't actually want buggy behaviour, do you? Google is your friend: e. From rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au Fri Aug 31 08:35:08 2007 From: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au (Richard Chirgwin) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:35:08 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <46D7311D.2070001@lannet.com.au> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> <672uje$59udmn@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46D7311D.2070001@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46D7461C.8000403@ozemail.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > > > Jan Whitaker wrote: >> At 09:37 AM 30/08/2007, you wrote: >>> Can anyone with a non IE browser check out if it is just IE or a >>> really badly designed web site (or both)? >> >> I have js blocked using FF2 >> >> Loaded fine, no advisories. >> There are scripts from three different sources that I'm allowing >> individually to see if I can spot it: >> - news.com.au - no problem, but allowing put through a fourth source: >> tiser.com.au >> - imrworldwide.com - no problem >> - roo.com - allowed the video player feed to load, was a long wait >> for ad.doubleclick.com to load and added a script from macromedia.com >> >> - tiser.com.au - no problem, tracked to the roo.com load after allowed. >> - macromedia.com - no problem. >> >> The problem could lie anywhere, but may be the doubleclick slowness. >> >> uh-oh. I opened the Telstra page and it crashed firefox! That hardly >> ever happens. It froze on loading something from ths.news.com.au . >> The error signature is: >> ModName: npswf32.dll > > What the hell is it doing causing a Dynamic Link Library to load. I'm > guessing this is Winders, and judging by the name it might be an SWF > library. I don't know what the hell it's doing, but it's a first-rate pain in the backside... As I've previously remarked, I am increasingly seeing pages whose load behaviour is extremely bad and almost impossible to diagnose. Telstra is one; Sensis (particularly the White Pages) ditto; and so on. My guess about the DLL is that it's a piece of some moron's brand new "we have the best Web tracking and analysis program ever!" design but that's just a guess. On Macs, of course, DLLs don't load... RC > > . I tried to copy the error report, but that was >> too large in the window. I have saved the error report file if anyone >> wants to see it. >> >> When I reloaded FF, the page was viewable with no crashing. >> >> Jan >> >> >> Jan Whitaker >> JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria >> jwhit at janwhitaker.com >> business: http://www.janwhitaker.com >> personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/ >> commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/ >> >> Writing Lesson #54: >> Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for >> guests. - JW, May, 2007 >> >> 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, >> there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005 >> _ __________________ _ >> _______________________________________________ >> Link mailing list >> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au >> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link >> > From rick at praxis.com.au Fri Aug 31 08:59:50 2007 From: rick at praxis.com.au (Rick Welykochy) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:59:50 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <46D7461C.8000403@ozemail.com.au> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> <672uje$59udmn@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46D7311D.2070001@lannet.com.au> <46D7461C.8000403@ozemail.com.au> Message-ID: <46D74BE6.7000304@praxis.com.au> Richard Chirgwin wrote: > My guess about the DLL is that it's a piece of some moron's brand new > "we have the best Web tracking and analysis program ever!" design but > that's just a guess. On Macs, of course, DLLs don't load... I really doubt that, Richard. That is a serious security flaw and intrusion if a web site can download and execute a DLL on the client. Rather, the web page is requestinf functionality of the browser that is not available at startup time. That is what a DLL is often used for. As for Macs, which after all are running on BSD Unix. Yes, they have DLLs only by a different name: DYLIB. Oh, and Linux and all modern disk-based computer systems have some form of DLL. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. -- Mark Twain From cas at taz.net.au Fri Aug 31 09:05:15 2007 From: cas at taz.net.au (Craig Sanders) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:05:15 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <46D7311D.2070001@lannet.com.au> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> <672uje$59udmn@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46D7311D.2070001@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070830230514.GD23761@taz.net.au> On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 07:05:33AM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > Jan Whitaker wrote: >> uh-oh. I opened the Telstra page and it crashed firefox! That hardly ever >> happens. It froze on loading something from ths.news.com.au . The error >> signature is: >> ModName: npswf32.dll > > What the hell is it doing causing a Dynamic Link Library to load. I'm > guessing this is Winders, and judging by the name it might be an SWF > library. according to a google search, npswf32.dll is part of shockwave flash. it was installed when shockwave was installed. it's perfectly normal - to be expected, AND unavoidable - that multimedia content on a web page that relies on a plugin will trigger the browser to load that plugin (and any required libraries). of course, most flash content (and javascript) is worthless garbage, or worse than worthless (spyware, or buggy & crash-prone, or both). which is why it's a bad idea to let any web site run any arbitrary code they want on your browser/your computer. run firefox with the NoScript and AdBlock Plus plugins. craig -- craig sanders To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall. From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 31 08:59:06 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:59:06 +1000 Subject: [LINK] High Definition Web Video In-Reply-To: <20070830151835.034AB168A2@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> References: <20070830151835.034AB168A2@vscan42.melbpc.org.au> Message-ID: <46D74BBA.9040506@ramin.com.au> stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: > Coming Soon: Web Video in High Definition > > By Brad Stone. August 21, 2007, 12:00 am > definition/> > As Shayne Flint can't give his talk, on Open Moko, at tonight's SLUG meeting in Sydney, I am stepping in to talk on Open Source video editing and publication on the web. Sydney Linux User Group (SLUG) Meetings are open to the general public, and free of charge. For those who can't make it there is an online outline of my talk and details of the venue at Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Fri Aug 31 09:18:05 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:18:05 +1000 Subject: [LINK] FireLink Project Audit report Message-ID: <20070830231926.08A181DFB@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> The ACT Auditor-General, released a report on problems with "FireLink" system, which was intended to provide emergency communication in Canberra. The report makes interesting reading for anyone interested in how IT projects go wrong: "The audit concluded that there were deficiencies in the scoping, planning, procurement and management of the FireLink Project. As a result the overall management of the FireLink Project was neither efficient nor effective in the delivery of the intended outcomes to meet Authority and Agency operational needs. Key findings ... following the January bushfires in the ACT, the Government ... allocated $3.255m of the funding to the FireLink Project ... There was no business case prepared ... The procurement process failed to demonstrate clearly that the project would achieve a value-for-money ... consideration of risk for the FireLink Project was inadequate ... insufficient consultation with end users ... Performance requirements for the system and the supplier were not adequately specified ... change management to facilitate implementation of the new system was insufficient ... problems related to operational performance... did not achieve a number of the objectives stated in the procurement plan ... Project cost the Agency over $4.5m. ..." From: The FireLink Project, Performance Audit Report, Media Release, PA 07/11 28 August 2007 Media Release: Full report: 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 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 31 10:05:13 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:05:13 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <20070830230514.GD23761@taz.net.au> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> <672uje$59udmn@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> <46D7311D.2070001@lannet.com.au> <20070830230514.GD23761@taz.net.au> Message-ID: <46D75B39.2040302@ramin.com.au> Fairfax predicts TV auction delay seems ok if slow to me under iceweazel 2.01/Knoppix 5.1 Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 31 10:11:14 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:11:14 +1000 Subject: [LINK] PM's staff shifts the Wikipedia blame In-Reply-To: <46D73318.60608@lannet.com.au> References: <46D686C1.80809@praxis.com.au> <46D73318.60608@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <46D75CA2.9030809@ramin.com.au> Howard Lowndes wrote: > It'll be interesting to see if Macquarie Telecom fess up, contradict, or > stay schtum. Fess up to what? a)that they let their servers be compromised b)that they were lax and their servers weren't upto date (or they forgot about that server - when I switched ISPs this was a problem I faced) c)that their servers are correctly configured and they have been providing reliable services to the Federal Government for x number of years. Given that one of the sites is an ACMA site, I guess the issue will be investigated thoroughly. M > > Rick Welykochy wrote: >> >> >> >> or >> >> >> >> THE Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has blamed a mistake >> by its >> internet service provider for embarrassing reports its staff were >> editing >> politically sensitive Wikipedia entries. >> >> Last week the Herald reported that staff in the department had >> been editing >> Wikipedia entries, including one on the Treasurer, Peter Costello, >> to remove >> details that might be damaging to the Government. >> >> But Dr Peter Shergold, the department's secretary, said the >> internet address >> of the computer used to edit the entries was not that of the >> department as >> it had been "allocated to another customer in early 2005 by our >> internet service >> provider", Macquarie Telecom. His deputy, Dr Louise Morauta, said >> Macquarie >> Telecom had "made it appear" it was the department's address "when >> in fact it was not". >> >> Well, that's a hard one to swallow, Dr Shergold. >> >> One of the IP addresses in question is 210.193.176.115. >> >> reports the following: >> >> 210.193.176.150 >> 210.193.176.115 >> 210.193.176.100 >> 210.193.176.80 >> 210.193.176.60 >> 210.193.176.45 >> 210.193.176.30 >> 210.193.176.19 >> >> are ALL "Dept of Prime Minister and Cabinet", Canberra. >> >> If the information regarding these IP addresses is incorrect and actually >> two years out of date as claimed by Shergold, then Macquarie Telecom is >> looking pretty incompetent. >> >> But wait, that last address I checked is the PM's own website, >> http://pm.gov.au/ >> >> Anyone else smell a rat? Does this information belie Shergold's claims? >> >> >> cheers >> rickw >> >> > -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From marghanita at ramin.com.au Fri Aug 31 13:04:22 2007 From: marghanita at ramin.com.au (Marghanita da Cruz) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:04:22 +1000 Subject: [LINK] German left slam email spy plan Message-ID: <46D78536.1000205@ramin.com.au> I thought Germany had a right wing government however,... > LEFT-WING members of the ruling coalition have objected strongly to plans by the German interior ministry to enlist email spy software to monitor terror suspects. > A ministry spokesman confirmed that the proposed plank of new anti-terror legislation vetted the use of "Trojans" which smuggle themselves into a suspect's computer disguised as a harmless email. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 From scott at doc.net.au Fri Aug 31 13:21:35 2007 From: scott at doc.net.au (Scott Howard) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:21:35 +1000 Subject: [LINK] PM's staff shifts the Wikipedia blame In-Reply-To: <46D73318.60608@lannet.com.au> References: <46D686C1.80809@praxis.com.au> <46D73318.60608@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070831032135.GA18524@milliways.doc.net.au> On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 07:14:00AM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > It'll be interesting to see if Macquarie Telecom fess up, contradict, or > stay schtum. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but can someone point out where Macquarie Telecoms has ever said that this IP address was assigned to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet ? Scott From kauer at biplane.com.au Fri Aug 31 13:30:08 2007 From: kauer at biplane.com.au (Karl Auer) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:30:08 +1000 Subject: [LINK] PM's staff shifts the Wikipedia blame In-Reply-To: <20070831032135.GA18524@milliways.doc.net.au> References: <46D686C1.80809@praxis.com.au> <46D73318.60608@lannet.com.au> <20070831032135.GA18524@milliways.doc.net.au> Message-ID: <1188531008.3141.51.camel@karl> On Fri, 2007-08-31 at 13:21 +1000, Scott Howard wrote: > Perhaps I'm missing something here, but can someone point out where > Macquarie Telecoms has ever said that this IP address was assigned to the > Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet ? I don't think they've commented at all. People are basing their statements on the - admittedly rather threadbare - locational data available, and on the premise that those in PM&C are those most likely to have desired these changes. Ockhams Razor, you mentioned ... :-) Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au) +61-2-64957160 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +61-428-957160 (mob) From robinstephens at gmail.com Fri Aug 31 14:06:35 2007 From: robinstephens at gmail.com (Robin Stephens) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:06:35 +1000 Subject: [LINK] The Australian IT site. In-Reply-To: <672uje$59udmn@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> References: <47749.1188430659@iimetro.com.au> <672uje$59udmn@ipmail02.adl2.internode.on.net> Message-ID: <8056c7e90708302106t374d52abla8a71365c12b97c1@mail.gmail.com> On 30/08/2007, Jan Whitaker wrote: > - imrworldwide.com - no problem Doing a google search on "imrworldwide spyware" comes up with some interesting results. This is essentially redsherrif which has been discussed on link in the past. I have noticed that if there is a slowdown in the imrworldwide.com site, any sites that cause the applet to load have a very long rendering delay. Nasty. Robin From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Fri Aug 31 16:13:28 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 16:13:28 +1000 Subject: [LINK] PM's staff shifts the Wikipedia blame In-Reply-To: <20070831032135.GA18524@milliways.doc.net.au> References: <46D686C1.80809@praxis.com.au> <46D73318.60608@lannet.com.au> <20070831032135.GA18524@milliways.doc.net.au> Message-ID: <20070903003725.498FB3632@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> At 01:21 PM 31/08/2007, Scott Howard wrote: >... can someone point out where Macquarie Telecoms has ever said >that this IP address was assigned to the >Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet ? ... Macquarie Corporate Telecommunications is recorded in the Australia Pacific Network Information Centre entry for the address range 210.193.176.96 - 210.193.176.127. When I checked on 25 August 2007, the record showed it was for Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (this had been removed by 31 August 2007). This IP range includes the address (210.193.176.115) listed in the Wikipedia against the change made to the entry for "Peter Costello" on 28 June 2007 to remove "(AKA "Captain Smirk")". Macquarie Corporate Telecommunications will have logs of which agency each IP address was allocated to. The agencies will have logs of which workstation was used and who was logged in at the time. This could be used to find who was responsible for each change to the Wikipedia. Something like this must have been done for the head of PM&C to be able to say that none of his staff were involved. The staff responsible for the logs at agencies and their ISPs need to made sure the records are retained. In past inquiries, such as that into "certain Australian companies in relation to the UN Oil-For-Food Programme", the electronic records have proved very useful . The transcript of the Cole Inquiry has been transformed into the play "Deeply Offensive and Utterly Untrue", currently on in Sydney . So perhaps one day we will have "Captain Smirk - The Musical", based on the changes to the Wikipedia. ;-) 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 From Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au Mon Aug 20 11:51:05 2007 From: Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au (Tom Worthington) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:51:05 +1000 Subject: [LINK] Bad government web sites In-Reply-To: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> References: <46C816DA.3020701@lannet.com.au> Message-ID: <20070903230628.5942FA61@heartbeat1.messagingengine.com> At 08:09 PM 19/08/2007, Howard Lowndes wrote: >Could someone please test csa.gov.au I tried to go there with >Firefox 1.5.0.12 under Linux and I get a minimal response and a >hangup. I have the script blocker off. ... The text of loaded in 15 seconds (images in 30 seconds) on a 256/64kbps wireless link using Firefox 2.0.0.6, which is acceptable. There were some minor formatting problems: the text of the footer was unreadable, being overwritten due to font size problems. There is also an animated image of different language names which on the bottom of the left menu, which does not appear to make a lot of sense. There were also some minor syntax errors in the HTML. It is not a particularly bad web page, but not very good. The page has 180 links on it, which is excessive. It passes an automated accessibility test at the lowest level (Level 1), but fails at levels 2 and 3. 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