In a stunning admission by the government, it has come to light that information contained on the “non-compulsory” health and welfare card will be made available to the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation and the Australian police.

Background

The new health and welfare smartcard was announced recently by the Prime Minister who has slated $1 billion dollars for its development and rollout.

With the inclusion of photographs and personal biometrics data, the purpose of the card, according to the government is to help combat fraud and false claims on the health system and welfare departments.

While the PM has mandated that the card’s takeup be done on a strictly voluntary basis, several privacy groups have raised concerns that people will have difficulties accessing health and welfare without the care - in effect making it “compulsory by stealth.” Some take it further to claim that the card will be in effect, a de facto national ID card.

ASIO and the Police

With the recent admission that the data on the cards could be used by ASIO and the police, fears must now be held for the further “function creep” of the card.

In a system sold as a solution to the legitimate fraud woes of the health and welfare systems, it is difficult to see the justification for extending the use of the acquired data to include wider law enforcement issues.

The sad fact is that this move simply confirms the suspicions of privacy groups and the fact that the admission has been made even prior to the rollout of the card must raise serious questions over the government’s further intentions for the card.

Function Creep

When initiatives such as smart cards are rolled out, they are usually done with the best of intentions. It is the later discovery of additional utility that leads such initiatives to become far wider in scopre than their initial intent. A perfect example is a smart card that was initially intended to limit welfare fraud, later being used by security services for non-welfare related issues.

The interesting part of this current scenario is that the government has already announced the first step of function creep for the proposed card.

Once the card has been introduced, any control on further function creep is largely out of the public’s hands.

Technorati Tags: ID, ID card, privacy, Australia

The John Howard website (formerly at http://johnhowardpm.org) includes a satirical “sorry speech” from the PM apologising for the Iraq War (Australia was one of only two counrties to send troops for the initial invasion).

The site which is owned and maintained by social commentator Richard Neville, was regsitered with domain name registrar, Melbourne IT and was shut after the company was contacted by the Prime Minister’s office who cited copyright concerns as their reasons for making the complaint.

Despite the fact that Neville claims the site was made to look similar to the official website of the Prime Minister, but not exactly the same, the nature of the complaint raises several interesting issues, not least of which is the question of political censorship in a functioning democracy.

The arbiter of the claimed copyright violation in this case appears to be Melbourne IT. A certain level of intimidation can simply be assumed when an office (possibly the most important one in the country) full of bureaucrats with law degrees calls your company making threats, despite the company’s spurious claims that it acted on its own judgement and that the site in question looked like a “phishing site.” 

While the comedian in question may have indeed infringed copyright by copying the “look” of the real Prime Minister’s website, it’s reasonable to assume that more than just strict adherence to copyright issues was on the agenda of the PM’s office when they made the complaint.

The saga can now be followed at the comedian’s personal website - http://richardneville.com

Technorati Tags: John Howard, censorship, Australia

The group spanned a rather large geographic area, not surprising given the networked nature of the group, and several members are based outside of the US, in such places as the UK and Australia. There is no word yet on whether or not the US gov’t shared the information with these gov’ts so that they could be apprehended before evidence could be destroyed once news of their comrades being arrested arrived. The group used peer-to-peer program WinMX to exchange the pornography and to chat about its activities. Royal Raymond Weller, going by the screen name of “G.O.D. ” (not much of a power complex going on there, eh?), based out of Clarkesville, Tennessee, did the majority of the hosting, but apparently the footage was produced by various members of the group.

Recently, however, some people have become concerned with hostile government activity in outer space, among them Bruce Gagnon, who runs the “Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space” organization up in Maine. A lot of Gagnon’s writing reads like it’s from the tin-foil hat section of the local mental ward, but as the adage goes, there can be truth in the ravings of madmen.

One cause of this concern is the upcoming “March Storm”, an annual aerospace lobby session on Capitol Hill. Apparently this year is full of companies just itching to give the US space-based weapons capabilities. Many object to this, citing (morality aside, of course) the massive budgets these projects require, and illegality due to the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (commonly known as the Outer Space Treaty). However, the US government is not known for frugality, especially under the George W. Bush administration. Also, the Outer Space Treaty is very softly worded and vague (as most treaties are). The only weapons specifically outlawed by it are nuclear weapons and other ‘weapons of mass destruction’. It outlaws military bases and maneuvers, but is careful to mention that use of the military for “scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. And face it, nothing short of a war up there will get a country to admit whatever it is doing is not with ‘peaceful purposes’ in mind. Failing that, the current administration has also shown it is not above withdrawing from treaties that it just doesn’t like. President Bush has already called for a permanent base on the moon by 2020.

So how serious is the issue of space militarization? Most likely it’s just a matter of time. Many countries have quite a lot of spy satellites, and most are used for military support. China is already researching anti-satellite weapons, and most other advanced nations keen on a strong military are sure to follow. The moon is also rich in Helium-3, which many researchers believe holds the key to clean fusion, which makes it very desirable, something worth fighting and researching weapons for.

But, whenever it happens, it won’t be soon. Any projects picked up during this “March Storm” would probably take decades to put into practice. And while doubtful, there is always the slim possibility that it just won’t happen. Just look at how long the “Star Wars” project has been kicked around, all without anything practical coming out of it.

Her crime is recording herself having sex with her boyfriend on her mobile phone and then having that phone stolen by a jealous rival. The rival was then nice enough to upload the amateur film to the internet.

While this might seem banal enough to most weterners, the problem is that Tammy lives in Singapore - a quite traditional and strict society. It is a place where chewing gum is illegal and, as one unfortunate American found out a few years ago, vandalism can get you a session of 30 lashes with a cane from the state’s corporal punishment experts.

Hopefully, nothing so drastic awaits Tammy, but the effect this will have on her life in a small, conservative society shouldn’t be forgotten.

It also brings home the ugly side of technology.

The growth of the internet and digital communication technologies coupled with their decreasing cost and increasing accessiblity has had many positives, but as the case of Tammy Nyp has demonstrated, there is also a downside to the equation.

Citizen reportage is at an all-time high which has helped keep people informed and in extreme cases, governments accountable, has been an overwhelming positive of the digital revolution and is directly attributable to technology such as that used by Tammy Nyp.
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1) Keep a seperate Credit Card for online purchases. If you are an online shopper, then the fact is that you are at risk of people stealing your ID for nefarious purposes like credit card fraud. If you are using your usual credit card for online shopping, then you are at risk of losing the entire amount that you have access to on that card. It is a much better idea to have an entirely seperate card with a small credit limit that you use for online shopping. That way if the details get stolen, then the damage is limited to that smaller amount.

2) Don’t Give out Your Info to People Who Ask - If somebody contacts you on the internet via email or on the phone, then NEVER give them any personal information. Identity thieves often pose as legitimate companies like ebay and PayPal in the hopes of getting you to reveal sensitive information about yourself. Only give information if you have initiated the contact and are very confident of who you are dealing with.

3) Always manually type in the URL of your online banking and financial transaction services into your internet browser. Clicking on links to get to the address of your bank is asking for trouble (especially in emails) as scammers can use links to direct you to a scam website.

4) Keep your anti virus and firewall software up to date - Some  computer programs can track your online activities which is obviously not good if you are concerned about your online privacy. Usually such malicious programs are spread through email and can be caught and destroyed by most commercially available virus protection software.

5) Never give out personal or financial details via email - this one might seem pretty obvious, but plenty of people still get caught out. Email is not a secure way to transmit personal information.

6) Make sure a site is secure before transmitting personal information - look for indicators that the site is secure such as a URL that begins with “https” (which indicates a secure server) or a lock icon in the status bar of the browser.  Even these aren’t 100% effective as it is still possible for sophisticated fraudsters to  forge them.

Staying ahead of identity thieves is not necessarily about making yourself 100% impervious to attack (which would be almost impossible anyway), but rather making yourself a more difficult target than the next guy on the internet. If you can remain ahead of the pack in terms of internet security then you are far less likely to face the inconvenience of having your details stolen.

Technorati Tags: ID, Identity Theft, Fraud, Phishing, anti-virus, security

Biometric device manufacturers and advocates have for years had to fight against a solid base of people and organisations opposed to the use of biometrics on the grounds of privacy. Private manufacturers have had to deal with the issue of secure data storage as one of the central tenets of the anti-biometric movement.

Opponents of biometrics are concerned over the security of data both from a technological point of view as well as from an more conventional point of view, long fearing that companies might share the data with other companies and governments without the permission of biometrics users - including in unforseen circumstances such as the recent new’s of the government’s subpoena of information from the search engines.

Alarming to privacy advocates should be the relative ease with which several search engine companies appear to have acceded to the government subpoena for search data - albeit data that didn’t necessarily contain peronally indentifying details. Yahoo! has confirmed that they complied with the government’s request while MSN has declined to say if they even received a similar subpoena. This raises concerns regarding the level of opposition that some biometrics using companies would raise to a similar subpoena if presented with a similar situation in which the government was requesting sensitive private data, not to mention further concerns that the government, having seen success with attaining such information this time, will attempt to attain even more sensitive data in the future.

Given that Yahoo!, Google and MSN have massive resources with which to challenge a government subpoena and now knowing the fact that at least one succumbed at the first hurdle, it isn’t that much of a stretch to suggest that many biometrics companies (none of which have the financial clout of the major search engines to finance a potentially expensive legal battle with the government) would also simply acquiesce to government demands.

With this being said, the onus naturally falls to biometrics companies to demonstrate their intention and ability to secure data from being shared with any other parties. We doubt this will be done to the satisfaction of privacy groups.

Technorati Tags: biometrics, privacy, Google, MSN, Yahoo!, search engines

According to their site, the tool is being developed to analyse the volume of words in a speech that would indicate that the speaker was insincere in the speech regarding their true feelings on the topic.

Words such as “however” and “unless” as well as pronouns in the first person are measured in order to gain an insight into the amount of spin in each passage of a speech or text.

Judging from the increasing press that this project is getting, it is easy to see that there could be a real demand for this service.

Technorati Tags: politics, speeches, Canadian Election

In 2001, Kamaruddin Ambok sent his wife a text telling her that it was all over - an action that has cost him a grand total of 195 big ones in fines.

Accoring to Sharia law, he was required to declare his intention of divorce in court and not on a wonder of modern technology.

The maximum possible punishment for the crime was $350 or six months in prison.

In response to the sentence, Ambok was quoted as saying, “omfg!! i got soo pwned!!”

Luckily Mrs Ambot was allowed access to http://www.noslang.com/ to figure out what the hell he was talking about.

21 year old “Mitchell S.”  supposedly turned on his webcam and swallowed a concoction of pills and anti-freeze after logging onto his favourite site at http://www.metalgearsolid.org

Fellow gamers thought the man was joking, but after several days of failing to show up at their regular gaming sessions, they went to his house to discover that he had died in hospital on January 7.

“Our company has not in any way provoked this suicide. We are
not responsible for material published on the site,” said the owner of http://www.metalgearsolid.org which has been closed down pending an investigation.

While certainly terribly sad and regrettable that the young man died under these circumstances, the fact that a website is forced to bear the responsibility for his actions is perhaps a little unfair.