How Australia created the technology election

Tags: ausvotes, colin jacobs, delimiter, election, electronic frontiers australia, family first, filter, julia gillard, national broadband network, syndicate, tony abbott

This post is by Colin Jacobs, the chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia. It first appeared on the EFA’s site and is re-published here with his permission.

opinion This election, online issues finally got the attention they deserve. And the situation is here to stay.

I’m not talking about which party had the most Facebook followers or made the most gaffes on Twitter (Julia Gillard and Family First, respectively). Serious issues around internet governance and our internet future came into play, and by all accounts will continue to be significant as the situation plays out this week.

The first issue that affected the election was Labor’s mandatory internet censorship policy, 3 years old and counting. Throughout that time, I believe the accepted wisdom amongst the scheme’s proponents — the most notable being of course Senator Conroy — was that it would be unpopular with a handful of geeks but would appeal to the wider audience of mums and dads in the electorate.

If this was indeed the strategy, I think it backfired. Although it’s based on mainly anecdotal evidence, I believe many internet users had their political consciousness awoken by this attempt to slap censorship on the country’s net connections. When this issue was important to people, it didn’t just put them slightly off-side, but made them hopping mad, if not lifelong skeptics of the ALP. Over time I have spoken to MPs and parliamentary staffers of all stripes, and I’m pleased to report that many people did indeed contact their elected representatives and let the opinions be known. For some MPs, this amounted to a veritable flood, and the issue was absolutely on their radar.

Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to quantify what this did to Labor’s vote. The fact is that Labor suffered a big swing against them, and it’s worth noting that most of this swing went to the Greens, the most vocal opponents of the filter in Parliament. At the ballot box, we can’t disentangle the filter from other issues such as climate change and refugees that the Greens campaigned on, but I believe the filter played a big role.

The Coalition, of course, decided to oppose the filter themselves, and this didn’t happen until the election campaign was already underway. Once again, from reading the feedback online, there’s some evidence that this gave their campaign a boost amongst Australia’s netizens. The fact that they decided to make an announcement then, rather than wait for the legislation as they had previously indicated, shows that they thought this was the case as well.

So while I wouldn’t want to oversell it, internet users are hardly a minority in Australia, and issues close to their hearts are at getting more attention than ever before.

The other major technological issue of the campaign was of course the National Broadband Network. This was without a doubt the one area where the policies of the two major parties differed the most. At the risk of over-editorialising, it was also one of the few policies with long-term vision and a nation-building agenda. Labor’s policy calls for a huge investment in our broadband infrastructure, and — setting the economic arguments aside — is a clear win for internet users. The Coalition’s policy is much more modest and boils down to wringing the last drops out of the copper network while leaving the market to take care of the rest.

As it happened, both policies got some real scrutiny, culminating in Tony Abbott’s embarrassing 7.30 Report appearance where he begged off discussing the details of broadband by claiming (correctly) that he was no “tech-head”. This is a major development; our leaders are now expected to know the difference between peak and actual speeds, symmetric and asymmetric connections, ADSL2+, DOCSIS 3 and fibre to the home. Telecommunications capability has assumed a place next to, even ahead of, rail and roads as critical infrastructure. This is as it should be.

The NBN is still making itself felt. The regional independents, now ubiquitously dubbed “kingmakers” by the media, have all flagged this as an issue. Nothing reduces the “tyranny of distance” like a fast net connection would, so it’s a crucial issue for regional voters. If the three amigos decide to put Gillard back in the Lodge, our broadband future may have something to do with it.

Incidentally, an example of just how badly the filter has damaged Labor’s credibility with regard to online issues is some of the negative comments we received for praising this broadband policy in contrast to that of the Liberal party. Although this failure to “maintain the rage” against Conroy is temporary and I hope forgivable, the ALP have a long way to go if they ever want to regain the trust of Australian internet users.

I haven’t yet touched on the uses of the net itself, including social media, in the campaign. The major parties focussed as normal on scary TV ads to get their message out, and online spending by the major parties (as best we can ascertain) came in at well under 10 percent. The Greens and minor parties relied much more heavily on drumming up support online, both as a deliberate strategy and due to financial necessity. It doesn’t seem to have done them any harm at all. It’s interesting to ponder what will the next election will look like; will the 30-second TV spot still reign supreme?

With the way things are going, we might not have to wait three years to find out.

Image credit: Believed to be public domain or out of copyright

If there is one thing that is clear from the latest Sophos mid-year security threat report, it is that traditional attacks on private data are still prevalent.  Perhaps the vectors are shifting but figures show Spam, Phishing and Malware are still a major source of worry for security personnel world-wide.

How can this be the case?  Why is it that the general public are continually fooled by Spam emails for example?  And beyond these basic questions, why don’t people, armed with the knowledge of rising online fraud crimes shy away from using services such as Internet Banking?

Michael McGuiness, Sophos’s Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations tries to explain “A general observation that we would make is that most people will default towards convenience over security. Though people are aware that credentials could get stolen, and bank accounts compromised creating a situation, at best a huge nuisance and at worst at significant financial loss for them, they are still unwilling to go back to the point where they hand write cheques and lick stamps.”

McGuiness continues, “The same is true in the corporate world, employees of a corporation understand that using an iPhone is not as secure as a Blackberry, they still demand the iPhone.  It starts at the top, it’s not somebody sneaking one in at the lower levels of the organisation, and it’s the CEO demanding the ability to use the iPhone to communicate with the board of directors about a critical earnings announcement.”

The Security Threat Report shows that the traditional security attacks are migrating to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.  Since April 2009,moving into 2010 reported Spam attacks reported from social networks increased from 33.4% to 57%, Phishing from 21% to 30% and Malware from 21.2% to 36%.  It is clear that criminal activity is moving into the online worlds increasingly populated by everyday internet users.

“The most common way to get infected these days is no longer double clicking on an attachment in an email, but rather following a link to a website,” explains McGuinness “Which is why the social networking vector is becoming more prevalent and prominent. It fools people, if you go to Facebook and up on your news page your best friend says ‘isn’t this cool?’  You don’t necessary think, wait a minute, was his account compromised? And was this sent as a way to entice me to a malicious website?  I start to think that way now, but I didn’t necessarily a month or two ago. “

McGuinness continues “You look at something and say, is that really what my best friend would have done. You don’t have to go to a website and click on something; you only need to be at the website and malicious code will execute, if you are unprotected.”

The organisation of criminals attempting to get hold of your private information is getting more professional by the year.  One way of enticing traffic to malicious websites is no longer simply to present an alluring link, instead malware writers are using current news events and search engine optimisation techniques to simply put their sites at the top of an innocent Google search.

Obviously money is being made by these organisations.  “It’s growing, it’s profitable, and it’s much more professional.” Says McGuinness  “ I have this vision of a modern malware author-hacker out there is a guy with a lunch box, [access] badge, health plan and a desk.  They show up at the office, badge their way in, and spend a day trying to steal your money, punch out, go home and coach the kid’s soccer team.”

“If you ask most people where does most malware come from?” says McGuinness “They would say Russia or China, but you can see from the report that it comes from the U.S.”

42.29% of Malware is hosted in the U.S according to the report, with China at 10.75%, Russia at 6.13% and Germany and France around 4%.

McGuinness is quick to point out that things are changing in China “Even more recently China has dropped much further down the ranking, the suspicion is that Chinese are just stopping out-bound spam.  If they determine a high volume spammer is residing in China they just shut down that IP address.  So I think China has become a very good corporate citizen of the internet in the last six months.”
How can the everyday computer user hope to beat organised crime gangs constantly attacking and probing for digital information?

McGuinness says” We are in a different world. When you were young, you had your parents to teach you when to cross the road safely, cross when there is a green man, not when there is a red man.  But who’s teaching our society currently about what is good and bad?  We are having to learn by accident.  We have the largest social change that has probably ever occurred in our social history, and that change is happening around us right now, legislation is a couple of years behind, law enforcement is a couple of years behind and one of the good elements that isn’t behind is the media.  I think you guys are doing a good job publicising what is good and bad whilst our society goes through its learning. “

Thanks Mr McGuiness, but there must be more weapons in our defensive arsenal?  McGuiness goes on “The other element other than good legislation and good education is obviously good technology, we are getting better at integrating and making that simpler.  The enemy of security continues to be complexity, so bringing together good elements of education, legislation and technology I think we will win the battle one day, but I think we are really only at the start of that process.”

How does a company such as sophos stay on top of new technology in this new world?  What are security firms doing to protect the public where a new connected device hits the market every month?

Roby Forsyth, Managing Director for Sophos in Asia Pacific explains” We actually have more people baking in security to new technology rather than bolting it onto the outside, so if you have a new product coming to market and you want the market to perceive it is a good product to use, and you haven’t thought of security then you will not be successful.  So that is why Sophos works with so many OEM partners to ensure we bake in their security.  I think we are getting better at it, there is a long road ahead but each new product that comes on the market is more secure than its predecessors.”

Michael McGuinness expands on this”Many of our customers are concerned about additional devices that they consider insecure, for example the iPhone, the iPad, however, the concern right now is less about malware and more about information loss.  It is very easy for people to carry around huge amounts of information on these devices, and if they are lost, or stolen or somehow compromised then that information is out in the wild, with potentially significant ramifications both in terms of regulatory compliance, IP protection even legal action.  We are a company that focus both on malware as well as helping companies with information protection, so we start to put in capabilities into our products that let companies assign policies for different types of device interaction.”

In Australia our (yet to be decided) Government is wrestling with the best options for connecting even more people to the internet, whether it is fibre to the home or some other technology, chances are that over the next few years even more folks will be greater consumers of connected technology than ever before.
Forsyth is also the Deputy Chairman and Treasurer of the Internet Industry Association of Australia and certainly has some thoughts on what the NBN may mean for the country:  “ The delivery of high speed broadband to our society, comes with some security risks to those that haven’t been exposed to it previously.  I suppose I am keen to see the rollout of any future broadband network have security baked in rather than tacked on.”

Forsyth continues “If we have a disadvantaged community in a remote part of Australia, who has not previously been exposed to the internet, and is suddenly given a 1GB link to their premises, that’s going to be a serious security risk to expose them to the worst of Eastern European crime.  It doesn’t matter if that is delivered wirelessly or  fibre, whether it comes at 12MB or 1GB, we still have an education process to go through, and if the government are going to get involved in delivering then they must take responsibility for delivering it safely.  We don’t build roads without having rules on those roads, without driver education and without standards for seatbelts and air-bags, there is a whole range of things that come together for that kind of safety, and should exist in any type of rollout of a National Broadband Network.  One way or another the society will end up with a fast broadband network, the delivery mechanisms will be decided on through government initiatives and commercial realities of what can be afforded, so I have no doubt we will get there, but I want to get there safely.”

Finally, there was a time when one of the selling points for Apple’s range of technology was that it was relatively immune to many security attack vectors.

McGuinness says” Don’t underestimate the bad guys, be very certain that they are in a free market economy, and so they invest their resources where their likely to get the greatest amount of return.  Historically Macs were a relatively low percentage of users, especially if one of the objectives might have been to steal corporate information.  I would say, in the U.S [today] Macs are fifteen percent of the corporate population, and growing.  And those fifteen percent are often contain the most valuable information, because their C level executives or key designers, or creators of intellectual property within an organisation.  They are the ones that feel they have the need or the power to say ‘I’m getting a Mac’.  As the prevalence of Mac use increases in both the home and the corporate environments, the bad guys are just going to start to target the Mac.”

Source: http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/security/41466-sophos-dont-underestimate-the-bad-guys

Digg needs an overhaul to keep up with … Facebook? Source: news.com.au

TIME magazine has released its list of the 50 best websites of 2010.

In a sometimes strained bid to remove itself from the predictability of last year’s list – which included Google, YouTube, Facebook and Skype – Time’s Top 50 Websites of 2010 has opted to give some of the smaller hitters a boost in 2010.

Vimeo is more intuitive than YouTube. Gowalla is more fun than Foursquare. LinkedIn and Tumblr have surpassed Facebook and Twitter.

WikiLeaks has made the top five News & Info list, but then again, so has The Onion.

But it seems the big announcement from Time has been outdone by its own complementary piece, “The Five Most Overrated Websites”.

News Ltd’s MySpace – owned by the parent company of www.news.com.au – gets its regular pasting for not being innovative enough, while Craigslist is too boring, even for a classifieds listing.

The real interest is the vote against news aggregator slash social network Digg, criticised again for not keeping up with the likes of Facebook.

It’s the top trending topic at Time.com, no doubt fuelled by thousands of raging Diggers themselves.

Best Websites versus Most Overrated Websites? Once again, bad news is good news for publishers.

Source:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/overrated-digg-causes-more-debate-than-times-top-50-websites-of-2010/story-e6frfro0-1225910222654

Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott, the ABC’s Chris Uhlmann, Adam Bandt and Bob Katter at the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage Source: The Australian

INDEPENDENT MP Tony Windsor has questioned the $43 billion National Broadband Network price tag, describing it as a “fictitious number”.

Mr Windsor is one of three country MPs at the centre of power-sharing negotiations, including Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter, who want access to Treasury secretary Ken Henry and Finance department secretary David Tune as they prepare a “roadmap” before entering into talks with Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.

They’ve issued a “call for information” on seven key areas, including access to the costings on all election commitments. As a result Labor could finally be forced to reveal how the $43bn figure was derived.

Mr Windsor described the request as “a test to the parties in terms of their promises going into the election” and questioned the veracity of the NBN funds.

He was flanked by the two federal independents and newly elected Greens MP Adam Bandt.

The NBN is set to be the largest ever infrastructure project undertaken in Australia but the government has never provided a cost-benefit analysis to support the ambitious project.

In fact Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has repeatedly said there was no need for such a study.

Senator Conroy last reiterated that stance to reporters on August 10 at the National Press Club, Canberra.

“Telstra made it very clear that they could find no business case beyond five capital cities and north and south of Sydney.

“So the Gillard government has decided we’re going to do it. We’re not going to wait another 12 months doing a cost-benefit analysis.

“We are leading the world in leading Australians to the 21st century. We’re not hiding it, we’re making it clear that this is a government investment,” Senator Conroy said then.

Taxpayers will provide $27bn to fund the NBN with the remainder coming from private equity.

The Coalition will scrap the fibre-based NBN and replace it with a $6bn version using a mix of technologies including HFC and wireless.
The Greens publicly back the project but don’t want the network privatised in years to come.

“The NBN should go ahead, with priority for communities in regional areas, and it should absolutely stay in public hands so that we don’t see another repeat of the debacle that followed the privatisation of Telstra,” Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam said last month.

“The opposition’s wrecking tactics in the telco sector have gone far enough with the in-principle agreement signed between Telstra and the Commonwealth Tony Abbott no longer has a constituency for blocking, delaying and avoiding reforms,” Senator Ludlam said.

Labor and the Greens want Telstra to separate its wholesale and retail operations – a proposal the opposition has railed against.

Earlier today, the three independents outlined the process they would undertake before commencing talks with Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott.

“We need to establish where the budget bottom line is … in terms of the promises made by the parties,” Mr Windsor said.

“What we are actually talking about here is in terms of the promises that were made during the election campaign by both sides. We need a starting point of the finances of the nation.”

Source:  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/government/nbn-under-scrutiny-by-country-mps-windsor-katter-and-oakeshott/story-fn4htb9o-1225909874574

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I found this great artical by

• By Stephen Fenech
• From: The Daily Telegraph
• March 03, 2010 9:48AM

Mobile Smart Phones (l to r) Nokia N900, iPhone 3G S , BlackBerry Bold, Samsung Icon HD , HTC HD2, Picture: John Fotiadis Source: The Daily Telegraph

NEW smartphones let you see the world from the palm of your hand, writes Stephen Fenech.

NOKIA N900
Price: $899
Website: nokia.com.au
Rating: ***

NOKIA’S latest entry into the smartphone market offers the best of both worlds with a touch-sensitive screen and a slide-out qwerty keyboard.

The N900′s 3.5-inch screen is very responsive and the keyboard lets you type messages, tweets or status updates quickly.

The downside of having both is the added weight (181g) and thickness (1.6cm) of the device. The N900, which is due for release next month, also runs a new Maemo operating system that makes it easier to multi-task and browse the web.

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For nearly all of its functions the N900 needs to be held in landscape mode like a laptop, but it can be flipped sideways to make calls.

HTC HD2
Price: $829
Website: htc.com/au
Rating: ****

THIS phone’s headline feature is its enormous screen. It’s simply huge at 4.3 inches and makes web browsing, media viewing and reading messages comfortable.

The device is also quite thin and, with an exclusive Telstra partnership until March 31, it sings along nicely on the Next G network. It has space for memory cards to expand its storage and a 5-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom.

Under the hood, the device runs Windows Mobile 6.5 and it’s here that it puts the smart into smartphone with mobile versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint plus full email synching with Outlook using ActiveSync.

IPHONE 3GS
Rating: $879 16GB/$1040 32GB
Website: apple.com.au
Rating: ****

THE iPhone reinvented the smartphone with a touchscreen interface and slick operating system. It also created a new mobile computing platform that has inspired more than 140,000 apps for the device.

Apart from being a phone, the iPhone is also a great way to browse the web and access email, both private and corporate. It incorporates a fully fledged iPod that can store thousands of songs and can play movies and TV shows in the palm of your hand.

Couple that with GPS navigation, wi-fi connectivity, a 3-megapixel camera that can capture video and stills, a voice recorder and voice controls and you have got a very personal computer.

SAMSUNG ICON HD
Price: $999
Website: samsung.com.au
Rating: ****

THE specs on this are impressive, starting with its bright 3.7-inch screen that can display up to 16 million colours. The Icon HD packs in an 8-megapixel camera that takes high-quality images, but the trump card is its ability to capture and play video in high definition (720p).

Running the Symbian operating system, the Icon HD provides a clean and reliable interface to navigate its many features, including Outlook email, Microsoft Office compatibility, a business card scanner, voice recorder and FM radio.

It can also share files, including high-definition video, wirelessly using DLNA to compatible devices on a home network such as a TV or computer.

BLACKBERRY BOLD 9700
Price: $999
Website: blackberry.com
Rating: ***

BLACKBERRY cut its teeth as a tool for business users, but today the smartphones are selling faster among regular consumers.

The Bold 9700 reflects this trend with a designer look, high-res screen and multimedia features that make it as much an entertainer as a communication device.

Its strength is as an email device that can deliver your Gmail or connect to your company’s secure server for business mail. And having a full qwerty keyboard means heavy email users who don’t like typing on glass can power through messages with ease.

A new feature is the trackpad that allows users to navigate the device with the brush of a finger.

The project, dubbed Jabiru, has been in development since 2007 and is spearheading the company’s move to cash-in on the government initiative.

Company CEO Adrian Ballintine said the satellite will be able to serve the 247,000 homes identified by the government as located in digital TV blackspots.

“The satellite designed to provide ‘Ka band’ coverage across Australia will have a payload that accommodates the distribution of live broadcasting to the [blackspots],” Ballintine said in a written statement.

Under the plans, blackspot areas will be served via improvements to existing terrestrial broadcasting facilities, installation of repeaters to extend signals, and the addition of satellite services.

Broadcasters will spend some $18 million to upgrade 100 analogue transmission relay towers to digital.

Consumers receiving digital television signals will need to shell out about $300 for new satellite dishes, alongside a $300 government subsidy.

Layer 10 analyst Paul Brooks said the provision of satellite services is an issue of footprint, rather than capacity to supply digital television, and suggested the government may consider launching a new satellite to serve blackspot areas.

Telsyte analyst Greg Tsang said it may be more economically feasible to launch a dedicated satellite to supply broadband and digital TV, than to install terrestrial repeaters to geographically-dispersed areas.

“[The government] might find it cheaper to launch a satellite to supply a footprint to these areas rather than installing repeaters,” Tsang said.

Tsang said it is “not unreasonable” to expect a government tender for the supply of new satellite services, adding IPStar, AusSatCom, ITC Global Orion.

A spokesman for the communications department had not responded at the time of writing.

Telstra opens security monitoring facility in Canberra

Telstra SOC integrated with GOC and MNOC.

Telstra today opened its Security Operations Centre (SOC) at a secret location in Canberra.

The facility would aims to help the telco keep an eye on its own core infrastructure as well as those of its managed security clients.

The facility is 1,300 square meters, employs 40 security staff and according to the telco, is fully integrated with its Global Operations Centre (GOC) in Melbourne and Managed Network Operations Centre (MNOC) in Sydney.

Gavan Corcoran, executive director of Telstra Network & Services, said in a statement that the SOC was required because of increasing demand for managed security services from large customers.

“The growing demand from our enterprise and government customers for managed security services from Telstra has warranted the launch of this new multi-million-dollar site to complement our existing network monitoring expertise and facilities,” he said.

Corcoran said the facility would also keep close watch on Telstra’s core network.

“The SOC will specialise in the secure management of Telstra’s core infrastructure alongside the networks Telstra manages for a range of enterprise and Government customers,” Corcoran said.

I hope you enjoyed this article.

GS

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