Yesterday I woke to find that the Rudd Government had lost its tiny mind and finally lurched so far right that it was convincingly lost in a strange black ops forest.
Yep, it had called up the terrorist bogey man to insist that it was fit and proper to let an employer snoop unannounced into every email passing through an office computer or a company laptop being used by a worker while out in the big bad world.
So who or what has been whispering in the shell-like ears of our fearless Cabinet members?
After US Homeland Security and FBI, the first Aussie culprit appears to be The Research Network for a Secure Australia, a "multi-disciplinary collaboration established to strengthen Australia's research capacity for protecting critical infrastructure from natural or human caused disasters including terrorist acts" and provide security "commercialisation opportunities", funded by the Australian Government (at least until next year) and administered by Melbourne University.
Looking at the Network's management and advisory line up, I am flabbergasted that all these academics and professionals could apparently come up with to 'protect' Australia from cyber threats was a plan to spy on ordinary people.
The management committee contacts are:
A/Prof. Priyan Mendis
Reader, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
The University of Melbourne,
Prof. Ed Dawson
Director- Information Security Institute
Queensland University of Technology
Prof. Joseph Lai
Associate Dean (Research)
UNSW @ ADFA
Australian Defence Force Academy
Its advisory committee is made up of the following:
Chair:
Mr. Mike Rothery (Director, Critical Infrastructure Branch, Attorney-General's Dept.).
Members:
Dr. Richard Davis (Head, NSST Unit);
Dr. Lynn Booth (DSTO);
Mr. Bruce Howard (Engineers Australia, Security Commissioner);
Prof. Ed Dawson (QUT);
Prof. Peter Anderson (PICT, Macquarie University);
Mr. Jason Brown (General Manager, Thales);
Craig Sharkie (CSL Ltd);
Tony Sleigh (NSW Lands);
Mr. Warwick Watkins (Director-General NSW Lands);
A/Prof Priyan Mendis (Convenor of RNSA);
Prof. Joseph Lai (ADFA);
Ms. Jennie Clothier (DSTO);
Mr. Terry Vincent (Australian Bomb Data Centre).
Advisory Board Secretary:
Mr. Athol Yates (Australian Homeland Security Research Centre)
The Australian Homeland Security Research Centre which gives the advisory board its secretary also has an expertise roll call that makes for interesting reading. An employment background combination of business, military, embassy and spooks all seemingly looking to sell us something to fight that bogeyman.
Of course the bogeyman is just as likely to be an infrastructure company like Telstra who very recently repaired an internet exchange box storm-damage fault with an equally faulty computer card and launched its own 2-day denial of service cyber attack on Yamba customers by bringing down its broadband service. And in the process actually realising the observation that being struck by lightening is more probable than a terrorist attack!
