[LINK] Link Digest, Vol 241, Issue 15

Wed Dec 12 10:19:24 AEDT 2012

Topic 5   Australia Internet Freedom

Every year Freedom House has me write up a report on the state of Internet Freedom in Australia.  They typically wish to know the extent of surveillance, civil liberties infringement, digital divide issues, and pretty much any type of incident associated with freedom. (major cyber attacks, surveillance issues, change of laws, defamation, freedom of the press online, censorship, etc.).

If anyone wishes to contribute Australian examples feel free to share on linked list or email me at a.maurushat at unsw.edu.au

Thanks, Alana

Dr. Alana Maurushat
Lecturer, Faculty of Law, The University of New South Wales
Academic Director, Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, The University of New South Wales
Room 231, The Law Building, Anzac Parade, Sydney, NSW, 2052
a.maurushat at unsw.edu.au
Office +61 02 9385 8027
Fax     +61 02 9835 1772

This email and any attachment(s) transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the addressee(s) and may contain information that is confidential or subject to legal privilege. If you receive this email in error, please disregard the contents of the email and attachment(s), delete them and notify the sender immediately. Please note that any copying, distribution or use of this email is prohibited. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the view of The University of New South Wales. Before opening any attachments, please check for viruses. UNSW ABN 57 195 873 179. CRICOS Provider No: 00098G.

P Please consider the environment before printing my email.

________________________________________
From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au [link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] on behalf of link-request at mailman.anu.edu.au [link-request at mailman.anu.edu.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 11 December 2012 12:00 PM
To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
Subject: Link Digest, Vol 241, Issue 15

Send Link mailing list submissions to
        link at mailman.anu.edu.au

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
        http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
        link-request at mailman.anu.edu.au

You can reach the person managing the list at
        link-owner at mailman.anu.edu.au

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Link digest..."

Today's Topics:

   1. A 'that's a stretch' story (Jan Whitaker)
   2. Google breaks (Jan Whitaker)
   3. Re: Google breaks (Bernard Robertson-Dunn)
   4. Re: Google breaks (Noel Butler)
   5. Re: Google breaks (tomk)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:02:24 +1100
From: Jan Whitaker <jwhit at janwhitaker.com>
Subject: [LINK] A 'that's a stretch' story
To: "link at mailman.anu.edu.au" <link at mailman.anu.edu.au>
Message-ID: <520371$jk27j1 at ipmail06.adl6.internode.on.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

[This relates to the NBN in any important way how?]

NBN contractor to lay off 160 workers

Peter Cai
Published: December 10, 2012 - 8:28PM

CONSTRUCTION company Silcar, which has won a significant slice of the
NBN building contract, is set to lay-off 160 employees January next year.

The company said in a brief statement that it would terminate the
employment of 160 staffs after it lost the maintenance services
contract with BlueScope Steel at its Western Point site.

BlueScope's Western Port site is located near Hastings, approximately
80kms south-east of. Melbourne.

"With the expiry of this agreement, Silcar will cease operations at
Bluescope Hastings on January 26th 2013," according to the company's statement.

Silcar is jointly owned by Siemens, a German electrical engineering
company and Thiess Services, a engineering and services company in
Australia and South East Asia.

The company spokesperson declined to comment further on the job losses.

This story was found at:
http://www.theage.com.au/business/nbn-contractor-to-lay-off-160-workers-20121210-2b5rm.html

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

_ __________________ _

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:33:38 +1100
From: Jan Whitaker <jwhit at janwhitaker.com>
Subject: [LINK] Google breaks
To: "link at mailman.anu.edu.au" <link at mailman.anu.edu.au>
Message-ID: <1763fb$gvic9j at ipmail05.adl6.internode.on.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

[Some interesting questions here: what do you do when the 'cloud'
service breaks? What do you do as a business when you outsource your
communications platform to a 3rd party like this and they then say, pay up?]

Gmail goes dark for users worldwide

Published: December 11, 2012 - 9:08AM

Several Google web products, including the popular Gmail service,
went down for users in Australia and around the world overnight.

Google confirmed that "service disruptions" had affected Gmail and
Google Drive, its online storage service. The two products are part
of Google's Apps suite, a Microsoft Office rival that caters to both
consumers and businesses.

By 5.10am (EDST) on Tuesday, Google's Apps Dashboard monitoring
service reported that Gmail and Drive service had resumed, after
having been down for about an hour.

"The problem with Google Mail should be resolved," it said. "Although
our engineering team is still fully engaged on investigation, we are
confident we have established the root cause of the event and corrected it."

The company did not specify how many users were affected, or where,
but the outage prompted widespread complaints on social media in
Australia, the US, Britain and Brazil.

"1st time experiencing Gmail/Calendar/Drive Outage in 6 years! ..
that felt awesome," tweeted @poytb in Sydney.

Some users also reported that the outage had affected Google Docs,
the company's word-processing and spreadsheet programs, while Chrome,
Google's internet browser, also crashed unexpectedly.

"We are currently experiencing an issue with some Google services,"
Google spokeswoman Andrea Freund said in a statement. "For everyone
who is affected, we apologise for any inconvenience you may be experiencing."

Firmly entrenched in the consumer market, Gmail is one of Google's
most popular and important product offerings. The search giant, which
has been pushing a corporate version of the email service and its
Apps suite to businesses to compete with Microsoft, said this month
that the package will no longer be free to business customers.

Reuters, Fairfax Media

This story was found at:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/gmail-goes-dark-for-users-worldwide-20121211-2b6gn.html

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

_ __________________ _

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:58:43 +1100
From: Bernard Robertson-Dunn <brd at iimetro.com.au>
Subject: Re: [LINK] Google breaks
To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
Message-ID: <50C66923.3040501 at iimetro.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

On 11/12/2012 9:33 AM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> [Some interesting questions here: what do you do when the 'cloud'
> service breaks? What do you do as a business when you outsource your
> communications platform to a 3rd party like this and they then say, pay up?]

If you were doing it properly, you would identify all the risks of the
new architecture and take proper precautions, through the application of
business continuity and disaster recovery techniques, so that you were
protected appropriately according to your business needs.

Does this happen? In my experience - very rarely. Someone has a Good
Idea (tm) to reduce costs but doesn't understand the changed risks they
should now deal with. PHBs are very good at that.

The world is becoming far more complex and interconnected. Simple
solutions have a habit of introducing new, far more difficult, problems
- of which the naive are totally unaware. It's often like watching
children at play.

--

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
email: brd at iimetro.com.au
web:   www.drbrd.com
web:   www.problemsfirst.com

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:28:05 +1000
From: Noel Butler <noel.butler at ausics.net>
Subject: Re: [LINK] Google breaks
To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
Message-ID: <1355182085.14278.2.camel at tardis>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On Tue, 2012-12-11 at 09:33 +1100, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> "1st time experiencing Gmail/Calendar/Drive Outage in 6 years! ..
> that felt awesome," tweeted @poytb in Sydney.
>

LOL Sounds like a Google employee trolling

It's the second or third time this year alone, then was the couple
time's last year as well and so on...
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 490 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/attachments/20121211/be8c98df/attachment-0001.bin

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:07:57 +0930
From: tomk <tomk at unwired.com.au>
Subject: Re: [LINK] Google breaks
To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
Message-ID: <50C67255.2080703 at unwired.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

On 11/12/2012 8:28 a.m., Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
<SNIP>
> The world is becoming far more complex and interconnected. Simple
> solutions have a habit of introducing new, far more difficult,
> problems - of which the naive are totally unaware. It's often like
> watching children at play.

Reminds me of that song by Tiny Tim, "Tiptoe through the Tulips".

--
Remember, amateurs built the ark ? Professionals built the Titanic

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Link mailing list
Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link

End of Link Digest, Vol 241, Issue 15
*************************************