This is the NBN Liberal & National Party MPs & senators are offering most of remote, rural and regional Australia

Stories from B.I.R.R.R. from MaRiKi Media on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/209040090

NBN roll out is still a dog's breakfast

Tasmanian Times on 5 February 2017 reminding Australia that the National Broadband Network (NBN) roll out is still a dog’s breakfast:

Letter to the Editor on the NBN

Alex Ratkai
05.02.17 6:45 am

We (in part of Nobelius Drive) have been experiencing constant loss of internet services since November 2015. When it is working, the speed is slower than cable internet- often taking between 10 and 30 minutes to view my mail, though we have high speed ADSL. Last July we received communication that the NBN was now available in Nobelius Drive. There was a Telstra truck parked near the shopping centre in Legana. With joy, I immediately went and signed up, with the promise that the NBN will be connected within a couple of weeks. In a couple of weeks’ time we received a call that part of our street wasn’t being connected, including us. I asked why and also for an indication of a time frame within which we may get it, asking whether it is weeks, months or years. Absolutely no commitment has been given. I was told that the local Telstra substation cannot handle the increased telephone and internet volumes and they aren’t able to do anything. They promised a fast internet service, when I signed up, delivering it for only a few years. Now we are left with no internet service often also an extremely poor or failing telephone service. We are in despair and no one seems to want to help. We live in an advanced country with a third world telephone and internet service. Is that what our country is to look forward to???
Help, someone help.

Yamba still in the NBN twilight zone

Akamai 2016 State of the Internet

The National Broadband Network (nbn) was established on 9 April 2009 to design, build and operate Australia's new broadband network.

By June 2017 it should reach the halfway mark in its build.

The cost of this national network is expected to reach $29.5 billion before the end of 2017 and require an est. $20 billion more to complete.

In 2011 58% of homes in the Clarence Valley local government area and 55% of homes in Yamba had a broadband internet connection.

The official population of Yamba as of the 30th June 2015 was 6,344 and this roughly doubles during peak holiday seasons.

By now over 1,744 homes are without decent upload/download speeds for their existing Internet connections - as well all the businesses internet connections in the two shopping/accommodation/dining precincts and small industrial area in this popular tourist destination.

Yet the given date for commencement of the rollout and current rate of progress, NBN connection for this town is still years away.

In fact, if the completion date of 2020 holds then Yamba is well and truly near the end of the queue.

National Broadband Network status for Yamba NSW 2464:

The rollout of the nbn™ network is planned in this area

Planned availability: Jan-Jun 2019*.

*This is an estimate and could change.

*The speeds actually experienced by end-users via fibre, fixed wireless or satellite will depend on a number of factors including the retail broadband plan they choose, their equipment and their in premises connection.

Given the way the build has been managed so far the extra money may run out before the NBN reaches Yamba and the town may yet have to buy shares in tin cans and string to compensate for the erratic performance of current Internet connections.

Australian internet speeds improving at snail's pace

My Broadband v Reality has been running a State of the Internet online survey here.

On 24 November 2016 the organisers tweeted some interim survey results:

Which ISP do you use?

Telstra 26.2%

iiNet 14.7%

Internode 11.7%

TPG 10.4%

Optus 9.2%

Skymesh 6.7%

These are the five most common Internet service providers named by survey respondents

What type of Internet connection?

ADSL 54.9%

Satellite 10.4%

FttP 9.4%

HFC 8.1%

FttN 6.1%

Median download speed of the 400 survey respondents was 11Mbps.

Average download speed was 22.9Mbps

Average cost of Internet plan : $84.34 per month

To place these preliminary results in perspective here are the April-June 2016 Top 10 average connectivity rankings found in Akamai Technologies latest State of the Internet report:

https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/akamai-q2-2016-internet-connectivity-executive-review.pdf

Here is how Australia officially compares with some of its trading partners:

https://www.akamai.com/us/en/our-thinking/state-of-the-internet-report/state-of-the-internet-connectivity-visualization.jsp

Donnie & The Trumpettes have a new website to play with

U.S. president-elect Donald J. Trump has created an official transition website which appears to be the repository of all his official media releases – www.greatagain.gov.

The website allows an Internet user to directly email the president-elect’s transition team to go on a mailing list and contains links to ‘policies’  but does not contain a search button, so as content grows it may be difficult to find older material.

There are a few things one must remember about this site.

Firstly, Donnie & The Trumpettes have reserved the right to collect, retain and pass on to third parties all information that can be accessed from your personal computer or other digital device – including but not limited to information on the device you are using, your ISP server and your internet address.

They further reserves the right to personally identify you from that information for “site security or law enforcement purposes”, to retain all information indefinitely, share it freely with undisclosed others and apparently spam at will.

This website privacy policy also states:

If you choose to identify yourself (or otherwise provide us with personal information) when you use our online forms:

We will collect (and may retain) any personally identifying information, such as your name, street address, email address, and phone number, and any other information you provide. We will use this information to try to fulfill your request and may use it to provide you with additional information at a later time. We may share your information with third parties.

If you request information, services, or assistance, we may disclose your personal information to those third parties that (in our judgment) are appropriate in order to fulfill your request. If, when you provide us with such information, you specify that you do not want us to disclose the information to third parties, we will honor your request. Note, however, that if you do not provide such information, it may be impossible for us to refer, respond to or fulfill your request.

If your communication relates to a law enforcement matter, we may disclose the information to law enforcement agencies that we deem appropriate….

We may keep information that will collect for an unlimited period of time.

Secondly, Trump reserves the right to limit access of individual Internet users to www.greatagain.gov for their infringement of the “intellectual property rights of others”:

For readers who may be interested, Trump’s transition team communications director is firing off the propaganda with gusto over at @JasonMillerinDC.

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Facebook's reputation going downhill fast

Facebook killing off its users……

Inshorts, 12 November 2016:

A Facebook bug on Friday caused the social network to briefly declare around two million people, including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, dead on their profiles. Several users were greeted with a eulogy message when visiting the profiles of friends and family, while some found their own accounts memorialised. Facebook apologised for the mistaken posts and said it was a 'terrible error'.

I'm guessing Zuckerberg isn't dead either... pic.twitter.com/9M9uaVsvjR

— Peter Stringer (@peterstringer) November 11, 2016

Facebook feeding its users lies as news……

The New York Times, 12 November 2016:

In May, the company grappled with accusations that politically biased employees were censoring some conservative stories and websites in Facebook’s Trending Topics section, a part of the site that shows the most talked-about stories and issues on Facebook. Facebook later laid off the Trending Topics team.

Mashable.com, 10 November 2016:

Every employee at Facebook should be ashamed of what their product became this year: a tangled mess of bizarre falsehoods and outdated information used as ammo to help people scream at one another. 

It has failed our bitterly divided country through its News Feed, which has weighed legitimate, reported information from good news organizations against propagandistic junk written by trolls and found there is no difference. Posted to your News Feed, a Pulitzer-winning New York Times report looks just the same as a blog post from The Right Stuff, an anti-Semitic content factory of the so-called "alt-right."

here's another thing facebook screwed up this week https://t.co/pJm8E3F5Kb

— Damon Beres ✨ (@dlberes) November 11, 2016

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 2016:

Facebook has vowed to crack down on misinformation and burst the "filter bubble", highlighted by the US election….

The US election has highlighted the power of social media as a propaganda tool, underpinning the insidious concept of "voter suppression" – attempting to dissuade your opponent's supporters from voting. Thankfully it's ineffective in Australia due to our mandatory voting system but it could have a significant impact on a close US election.

A voter suppression push to convince Clinton supporters that they could vote via Twitter, rather than attending a polling booth, was so widespread that Twitter was forced to publicly denounce it.

Blatantly false trending news stories are also a problem on Facebook, which has spawned an entire cottage industry of fake news sites because social media's vetting process for news is clearly less stringent than Google News' processes.

Facebook has usurped the role of the mainstream media in disseminating news, but hasn't taken on the fourth estate's corresponding responsibility for keeping the bastards honest. The mainstream media has no-one to blame but itself, having engaged in a tabloid race to the bottom which devalued truth to the point that blatant liars are considered more honest.

Facebook caught out and scrambling……

Pro Publica, 11 November 2016:

Facing a wave of criticism for allowing advertisers to exclude anyone with an "affinity" for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people from seeing ads, Facebook said it would build an automated system that would let it better spot ads that discriminate illegally.

Federal law prohibits ads for housing, employment and credit that exclude people by race, gender and other factors.

Facebook said it would build an automated system to scan advertisements to determine if they are services in these categories. Facebook will prohibit the use of its "ethnic affinities" for such ads.

Facebook said its new system should roll out within the next few months. "We are going to have to build a solution to do this. It is not going to happen overnight," said Steve Satterfield, privacy and public policy manager at Facebook.

He said that Facebook would also update its advertising policies with "stronger, more specific prohibitions" against discriminatory ads for housing, credit and employment.

In October, ProPublica purchased an ad that targeted Facebook members who were house hunting and excluded anyone with an "affinity" for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people. When we showed the ad to a civil rights lawyer, he said it seemed like a blatant violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.

After ProPublica published an article about its ad purchase, Facebook was deluged with criticism. Four members of Congress wrote Facebook demanding that the company stop giving advertisers the option of excluding by ethnic group.

The federal agency that enforces the nation's fair housing laws said it was "in discussions" with Facebook to address what it termed "serious concerns" about the social network's advertising practices.

And a group of Facebook users filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that the company's ad-targeting technology violates the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Clarence Valley libraries want to become eSmart

Clarence Valley Council media release, 31 October 2016:

How smart is your internet usage?

CLARENCE Valley libraries are working through a project to develop their branches as eSmart libraries and need your help.

“eSmart Libraries” is a cybersafety system designed to equip libraries and connect library users with the skills they need for smart, safe and responsible use of technology.

During November libraries are asking users to complete a simple questionnaire that asks about internet usage.

The questionnaire will gather information about the levels of digital literacy and cybersafety awareness of users of the Clarence Regional Library.

Regional librarian, Kathryn Breward, said the aim was to identify any digital literacy and cybersafety needs for the community, and provide ways to address them for library users.

“This will ensure all users of technology in our libraries are comfortable they are in a safe and supported environment in a physical sense and in their usage of the internet,” she said.

This is a voluntary and anonymous survey, and all data will be kept confidential.

The survey will be available at all libraries in print form, as well as online at www.crl.nsw.gov.au.

For more information on the eSmart project, visit the eSmart website at www.esmart.org.au.

Clarence Valley Region libraries are in Bellingen, Dorrigo, Grafton, Iluka, Maclean, Urunga & Yamba plus there is a Mobile Library service.

Yet another example of why the Australian Government's desire for the ultimate big data pool of citizen' personal information is a bad idea

This time it was the Australian Red Cross releasing 1.28 million donor records, containing first name, last name, gender, physical address, email address, phone number, date of birth, blood type, previously blood donations, country of birth, when record was created, type of donation, date of donation and donor eligibility answers including any sexually transmitted disease or drug use history.

This information was publicly available for viewing and download from 5 September to 26 October 2016.

           

IT News, 28 October 2016:

More than one million personal and medical records of Australian citizens donating blood to the Red Cross Blood Service have been exposed online in the country’s biggest and most damaging data breach to date.

A 1.74 GB file containing 1.28 million donor records going back to 2010, published to a publicly-facing website, was discovered by an anonymous source and sent to security expert and operator of haveibeenpwned.com Troy Hunt early on Tuesday morning.

The database was uncovered through a scan of IP address ranges configured to search for publicly exposed web servers that returned directory listings containing .sql files.

The contents of the 'mysqldump' database backup contains everything from personal details (name, gender, physical and email address, phone number, date of birth and occasionally blood type and country of birth) to sensitive medical information, like whether someone has engaged in at-risk sexual behaviour in the last year.

The database collected information submitted when an individual books an appointment - either on paper or online - to donate blood. The process requires donors to enter their personal details and fill out an eligibility questionnaire.

It does not contain data on blood reports or analyses, or responses to the full donor questionnaire all blood bank visitors are required to fill out at the time of their donation.

The database was published on the webserver of a Red Cross Blood Service technology partner that maintains the service's website, not the organisation’s www.donate.blood.com.au site where online bookings are made.

"This is a seriously egregious cock-up - this should never happen," Hunt told iTnews.

"There are no good reasons to put database backups on a publicly-facing website." The issue was compounded by the fact that directory browsing was enabled on the server, he said.

The file was removed on Wednesday. Hunt said there was no evidence of it having been accessed by anyone else, and both he and the anonymous source had deleted their copies.

Australia’s computer emergency response team, AusCERT, has been working with the Red Cross after being notified to the breach by Hunt on Tuesday.

The Red Cross indicated around 550,000 individual donors were impacted.

It attributed the issue to "human error" and said it was "deeply disappointed" to be in this position.

The service has started notifying affected donors today.

The Australian, 29 October 2016:

The Red Cross admitted it did not know how many people had accessed the information, which was publicly available from September 5 until Wednesday.

The breach was revealed by an unknown person who alerted Microsoft employee Troy Hunt, who runs a data breach notification service. Mr Hunt reported the breach to cyber-threat group AusCert, which in turn alerted the Red Cross.

The incident is being investigated by the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Health and the Australian Privacy ­Commission.

Red Cross Blood Service chief executive Shelly Park yesterday urged people to continue ­donating blood, saying information was now secure. “To our knowledge, all known copies of the data have been ­deleted. However, investigations are continuing,” Ms Park said.

But Mr Hunt said there was no guarantee the information had been completely erased, adding the breach was the latest ­illustration of how basic mistakes are key contributors to ­personal data being accessed by others.

“There was nothing new in how this data was accessed, this was just plain, old stupidity,” he said. “The real question this raises is should this data have been ­retained in the first place and why a third party needed the information at all.”

According to breachlevelindex.com in the first half of 2016 the Asia Pacific Region experienced 76 significant data breaches, 22 of which were in Australia.

Earlier this year: a Menulog exposed breach exposed 1.1 million records containing customer names, addresses, order histories and phone numbers [the exact quote in the CIO Australia article linked to here was "suffered from a breach of 1.1 million records leaving customer names, addresses, order histories and phone numbers exposed"- The Ideas Suite public relations agency acting on behalf of Menulog 
contacted North Coast Voices and would prefer to characterize this breach as "A former Menulog employee stumbled upon the private details of the company's customers, including customer names and email addresses". It is noted that the journalist quoted does not appear to have been asked by this agency to amend the original 21 September 2016 CIO Australia article as it remains as first published]; a malicious hacked dump of 67,118 Shadi.com customer records, recruitment agency Sarina Russo exposed client financial records which were dumped in a bin next to the office; disability information on nearly 7,000 current/former Sydney University students was exposed; customer accounts details on The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age digital editions, the Do Not Call Register and industry group CompTIA were also breached.

Also in 2016: the Australian Bureau of Statistics released contact names linked to more than 5,000 Queensland businesses in what was described as a “human error”; the Health Department was forced to remove data from its website amid an investigation into whether personal information has been compromised; and the Australian Public Service Commission confirmed it had withdrawn data gathered in its massive annual employee census from public view – but not before the data set containing the details of 96,700 federal public servants has been accessed by unknown persons 58 times. The Queensland Dept. of Premier and Cabinet and Dept. of Tourism were also maliciously hacked - along with the Maitland office of the NSW Dept. of Resources and Energy. 

In the 2015-16 financial year Victoria Police had 453 "information security incidents"  - up 36 per cent on the year before, with 27 incidents of police officers inappropriately accessing computer systems (including the Law Enforcement Assistance Program LEAP) and 40 instances of police data released without authorisation.

In 2015 K-Mart Australia’s online shopper database was hacked. Payroll systems were breached, harvesting extensive personal details (including names, address, dates of birth, tax file numbers, bank account details, gross earnings and superannuation funds and membership numbers) of up to 500 workers a day and the information used to lodge fraudulent tax returns with the Australian Taxation Office.

Additionally in 2015 Telstra customer’s admin and user credentials were stolen - including those of the Australian Federal Police. Similarly, the Patagonia Clothing Company, Aussie Farmers, David Jones, Queensland TAFE experienced data breaches where personal information was hacked and, 31,140 Optus customers’ had their personal and credit history information publicly posted on the website freelancer.com by the debt collection agency ARC Merchantile.

In 2014 Centrelink left revealing personal and financial details of clients lying around at a suburban railway station and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection unlawfully disclosed the personal information of approximately 9,250 asylum seekers by publishing a word document on a public page of the department’s website.

An estimated 800 million records were lost in 2014, mainly through cyber-attacks, and such attacks are thought to cost large Australian enterprises an average of $8.3 million a year.

With this unhealthy mix of ongoing institutional incompetence and determined malicious hacking risking the privacy of so much personal information, is it any wonder that concerned individuals look on the Turnbull Government’s drive to create a national database - which it will continuously update with additional medical, legal, financial, social and family information on each person born and/or residing in this country – as a gigantic honey hive ripe for the robbing?

Oh, and in case social media users are feeling comfortable about their own privacy on major online platforms – in June 2016 the Facebook application known as Uiggy was hacked and 4.3 million accounts were exposed along with names, genders, and Facebook IDs (2.7 million of which had email addresses against them) and on 27 October 2016 there was a Pastebin dump of 32 million Twitter accounts along with an invitation to use the details to hack further.