[LINK] Private emails exposing agencies

[grove at zeta.org.au]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011, Tom Koltai wrote:


This must be a parallel item to this:


http://newsletter.itnews.com.au/cgi-bin16/DM/t/eCGOG0En4Dl0PTM0DrON0Ek


rachel




>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au
>> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Antony Barry
>> Sent: Thursday, 24 March 2011 12:58 PM
>> To: Link list
>> Subject: Re: [LINK] Private emails exposing agencies
>>
>>
>>
>> On 24/03/2011, at 7:16 AM, Antony Barry wrote:
>>>
>>> To read the story, visit this link.
>>
>> Rats. Stupid button in the app I used encoded it as html and
>> the list software converted it to plain text. The link is
>> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/private-email
> s-exposing-agencies/story-fn59niix-1226027025964?from=tigerspike+no+html
> _rss
>
> or  http://tinyurl.com/4rdvhjd
>
> Fascinating, the article says...
>
> Quote/
> "It is possible that an attacker could target a person known to be
> working for a government agency, sending a socially engineered email to
> their webmail account," the ANAO report says.
> /Quote.
>
> Hm, Government Public Servant. Why would anyone bother to hack their
> account ?
> As it's the corporations that run the country and apparently have the
> money, wouldn't a hacker be better off trying to access the corporations
> networks ?
>
> Government cyber security has never been of a very high standard and if
> they then proceed to put everything in the cloud, my assessment would be
> that Government security would then equal nothing.
>
> I think the Government is reasonably safe, apart from annoying
> irrelevant attention seeking twits like anonymous.
>
> They could of course put the whole of government behind a one way fire
> wall and I do like the idea of email kiosks inside organisations.
> The other option would be a proprietary mail client that keeps a copy of
> all email sent and received on official Government computer systems
> [that would certainly decrease the number of private emails...].
>
> It strikes me that persons have their phones for all private
> emails/sms/twitterings/im's and phone calls these days.
> Could someone please tell me why employees need to use official
> government property for private communications ?
>
> Before you do, the logic of the Jet pilot borrowing an F-111 to pop home
> (Gosford) for lunch with his mum comes to mind.
> Same logic, different price tag [especially if a virus hits...[Err, F111
> crashes.].
>
>
> Tom
>
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-- 
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove at zeta.org.au                http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
    "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum." - Finagle's Law