[LINK] Cloud Computing Services in Australia?

[Roger Clarke]

At 18:24 +1100 6/11/11, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>Declaration of interest:
>I'm working at AGIMO on the whole of government Data Centre as a Service
>(DCaaS) project. DCaaS is a term being used by AGIMO to cover a range of
>services, which may or may not include cloud services.

Is it going to be in the spare space in the Deakin telephone exchange?


It's not a serious question, but it's surprisingly pertinent irony.

Ancient History:

During the Australia Card campaign c. 1986, the word went out that 
the change in exchange technologies had resulted in the then-new 
Deakin telephone exchange having been built much larger that it 
needed to be.

So the space was used to house computers as well.

Naturally the Departments that used the space were precisely the ones 
whose databases the government was proposing to merge.

So the media got conspiracy theories rolling about the government 
already proceeding with what they were supposed to be asking 
Parliament for approval to do.


Modern History:

Medicare, having spent two decades trying to convert the name Health 
Insurance Commission to Health Information Commission, is being 
merged with Centrelink.

And they also want to merge the Medicare information system (which 
contains sensitive healthcare data) with the Pharmaceutical Benefits 
Scheme database (which contains even *more* sensitive healthcare 
data).

And that's just one particular bit of dirty play by the public 
service that's come to light.  There's plenty of other skulduggery 
afoot, particularly elsewhere in health.


My question above is rhetorical of course.  Two decades later, you 
don't do anything really;  you do it virtually.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

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 the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University