A hole in Conroy's censorship net?

The Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, attended a Senate estimates committee hearing last Monday 23 February 2009.

Quite rightly much has been made of his continuing refusal to rule out censoring legal but 'unwanted' content if the Rudd Government's national mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering scheme is implemented.

However, there is another little gem in Monday's transcript of the Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts: Estimates which indicates that Conroy's proposed vastly expanded blacklist may be vulnerable at the outset:

Senator MINCHIN—I do not mean any criticism by this, because I think it is beyond your control, but there is another issue that I want to raise with you. It has been drawn to my attention that primarily because in answering this complaint by email you obviously referred to the site in question, which is understandable, the complainant, as I understand it, made the address of that site widely available via the publication of your email. Are you concerned that that is a significant flaw in your very worthy and, I think, comprehensive endeavours to ensure that the blacklist itself is not published or made available more widely than is absolutely necessary?

Ms O'Loughlin—That is a difficult question. In general, we were disappointed that that was distributed further, but we do not have the capacity to stop a complainant from making their complaint public.

Senator MINCHIN—But do you acknowledge that this is potentially a major hole in the security of the contents of the blacklist?

Ms O'Loughlin—In many respects, our main concern is the totality of the blacklist. That is something that we are distributing and we can make sure that there are appropriate security provisions in place for it. I think it is difficult for us then to take a step further and require complainants to keep their complaints to themselves. They know the consequences of the listing. We are disappointed by it, but it is difficult for us to do much more than encourage people not to distribute those things much further.

Senator Conroy—Just to clarify: this is the existing blacklist under the existing law that was in place for most of the period of the former government. It is the existing blacklist and the existing law that we are having a discussion about.

Senator MINCHIN—Yes, I accept that, Minister. I also accept that, if there is a loophole here, it has existed for some time, but perhaps it is just now being exploited. So is not an offence in any way, under any law or regulation, for anybody to publish a site, a page or whatever it is that has been blacklisted as a result of a complaint made.

It is evident that Senator Conroy will have to broaden his censorship net to make it unlawful for correspondence with the Australian Communications and Media Authority to be published, if he doesn't want any part of his precious blacklist to be leaked.
It appears likely that that he is be considering this option.

There is no end to the stupidity flowing from the Rudd-Conroy Great Firewall of Australia.

Twittering the Internet censorship protest continues

The Fake Stephen Conroy was still enjoying the banter last week.

stephenconroy Got science boffins looking into The Secret; apparently thinking about kiddie p#rn (and bicycles) can manifest kiddie p#rn (and bicycles). about 11 hours ago from twitterrific

jonseymour @stephenconroy does that make you a manifestation of someone's worst nightmare? about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to stephenconroy

Pic from Agmates.com and apologies to Jon for the # edit. The Administrator made me do it!

And here comes Hartsuyker trailing in the rear....

Since he was turfed from the government benches along with his Coalition mates in 2007, Nationals MP for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker has suddenly discovered the lives of ordinary Northern Rivers folk.
Surprise, surprise; this month he's noticed that single pensioners are doing it tough and has to tell the world about it.
Pity about the timing - his media release (and its beaut go at rewriting a little slice of history) lost much of its punch once Tony Abbott opened his mouth.
Luke now looks less like a self-styled local hero and more like the meat in the sandwich, as mainstream media records the difference of opinion between Truffles and the Mad Monk.
ABC Mid North Coast Radio News this week:
"The federal Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, says the Nationals remain committed to raising the single aged pension.
Opposition families spokesman Tony Abbott appeared to be pulling away from supporting a payment increase after telling 2GB radio that the increase was not viable.
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull then issued a statement calling on the Government to raise the pension.
Mr Hartsuyker says the change would bring Australia into line with key OECD countries.
"The Nationals are absolutely committed to raising the single aged pension by $30," he said.
"We have a situation where single aged pensioners are doing it particularly tough. It's important that they receive a pension that is around two-thirds of the married rate.
"In many countries around the world that is the status that exists. It is vitally important we support our single aged pensioners."

A Hartsuyker staffer also sent out a media release which was passed on to me this week by Clarencegirl.
It seems Luke is also hot under the collar over the coming redistribution of federal electorates in NSW which will see one seat go.
He's called on "North Coast residents to oppose any plan to reduce the number of Federal seats which exist in regional New South Wales".
As no North Coast electorates are affected by this redistribution, what little electoral gerrymander or two are we being asked to help create elsewhere?
He says he wants a Sydney seat to disappear - presumably one held by Labor's Murphy or Plibersek.
Or could his plea be a move to protect a couple of Lib MPs in Gilmore and Macarthur?

Pauline Plant of Yamba - finalist for NSW Woman of the Year

Pauline Plant, the creator of the Yamba Breast Cancer Support Group and Breast awareness program, is one of 10 finalists for the NSW Woman of the Year Award.

Earlier this year Mrs Plant was announced as the 2009 Clarence Valley Citizen of the Year.

The finalists for the Woman of the Year Award were chosen from 87 nominations with the winner to be announced on International Women's Day on March 5.

The other nominees are:

Layne Beachley - former world champion surfer

Cheryl Koenig - author

Patricia Johnson - State Emergency Service volunteer

Rozita Leoni - Eastern Sydney community worker

Wendy McCarthy - former University of Canberra chancellor

Jan Savage - Cancer Care Western NSW fundraising coordinator

Sue Ismiel - philanthropist

Rhonda French - a Wiradjuri woman, who voluntarily promotes positive health, education and cultural programs

Ana Tiwary - Vice-president of Women in Film and Television

Pic from The Daily Examiner

Dolphins at play, Iluka NSW

Photographs by Mike Litzow displayed at his blog

Once In A Lifetime.

The adventures of Mike, Alisa and young Elias on the sailboat Pelagic.

An object lesson for Senator Conroy.........

In December last year the BBC One Watchdog program outed legal firm Davenport Lyons for sending threatening letters to individuals with home internet connections (operating open WiFi networks) demanding sums in the vicinity of £500-£600 for alleged infringement of copyright.

These letters of demand were adamant that copyright breaches had occurred, even though it later found that it was in the wrong because either the downloading was proven not to have occurred on the PC in question or the stated IP addresses were incomplete or fake.

Now Davenport Lyons went so far as to make application to the UK High Court to start this extortion-like process off and it quickly descended into the ridiculous:

15. At 8:50pm on 08 Dec 2008, ebvjb45 wrote:

I also received one of these letters accusing me of uploading and making available a po*rn film called ************. As a happily married pensioner of 64 years old I ask you!. After plowing through the documentation I spotted one or two items that are either missing or incorrect.
It would appear that although they have my full postal address they do not have my name! The letter and documentation is addressed by name to ?Provider, Royal Mail Holdings PLC? If they do not use my name or appear to know it how on earth can they carry out any threats of court actions?
For me they list that the upload was done using three different IP Addresses, but all at the same time! As I understand it, my ISP issues me with single new IP address dynamically each time I reconnect to the internet (NOT THREE). As I use an ADSL Network Router that IP Address remains allocated to me till I switch off the router or disconnect it from the telephone line. The router is left switched on for weeks at a time. This throws some doubts on their data gathering reliability.
Doing a Google search on the name Davenport Lyons brings up some interesting facts about this company. After reading the comments about them and their ways of doing things I am certainly not going to be paying them a settlement. I will wait till they try to take me to court and fight it there.
Needless to say I have not seen this video, downloaded it or uploaded it.

It would have been most useful had Watchdog named the Lawyer who is representing the 400 people who received these demand letters, as I would like to make that figure up to 401 with my name. [Quote has been edited to avoid blocking by filters]

This law firm is apparently threatening Wikileaks for online publishing an example of the questionable letter of demand.

This is what Wikileaks has additionally published concerning how Davenport Lyons 'found' its information:

The legal threat letters themselves contain a hash value, and IP address and a time stamp that is being used as evidence – flimsy evidence according to many people who have observed the legal side of file-sharing. The reason it is seen as flimsy is that a filename can be called anything and still have the same hash value. Second of all, there is no evidence provided that verified that the file name matched what the actual work was. For all we know, it could have been a 5 minute porn clip rather than a music video. Thirdly, there's no evidence to suggest that an IP address is linked to an individual. The computer could be used by someone other than the owner of the connection. There could be a wifi connection that other users, including unauthorized ones, could be using that IP address. Finally, a time stamp doesn't contribute much into proving that a copyrighted work has been uploaded. The alleged incident in question happened over BitTorrent, but no website was given, so who really knows where the evidence was gathered in the first place?

A Davenport Lyons letter threatening the whistleblower with legal action was sent out this month.

This may be a response to the fact that it appears that Which? consumer group is now taking Davenport Lyons to court.

As the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, pursues his plan to censor the Internet in an effort to meet the corporate aims of both the IT security and entertainment industries he should perhaps ponder what bullying monsters he might be letting loose on Australian society.

Particularly as the Federal Government's own agency ACMA is operating in almost complete secrecy in creating its blacklist.

Senator Conroy may give assurances that the government will not be pursuing Internet account holders who appear to breach the ISP-level filter (if such a scheme is implemented), but there is no assurance that the client information which would have to be held by these ISPs will not be abused in the future.

Did you know Australia has a National Continence Management Strategy?

Did you know Australia has a National Continence Management Strategy?
I didn't.
It seems we even have a strategy website - The National Public Toilet Map.
In my younger days families often motored around the state on the basis of Golden Fleece petrol stations, but now they can follow the dunnies.
Bet you can't get those kids passports with visa stamps for each one visited though!
And for once New South Wales leads at something besides bad government.

Show toilets in:
Aust. Capital Territory (187)
New South Wales (4538)
Northern Territory (207)
Queensland (2992)
South Australia (1296)
Tasmania (718)
Victoria (3655)
Western Australia (1777)

Pic from Google Images

Sack this senator! Censorship protest digital billboard

If only..................................

Walking on the wildside: GMO transgenes found in wild maize

Evidence of the irresponsible nature of the biotechnology industry in general and Monsanto in particular.

Molecular Ecology:

A possible consequence of planting genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in centres of crop origin is unintended gene flow into traditional landraces.

In 2001, a study reported the presence of the transgenic 35S promoter in maize landraces sampled in 2000 from the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Analysis of a large sample taken from the same region in 2003 and 2004 could not confirm the existence of transgenes, thereby casting doubt on the earlier results.

These two studies were based on different sampling and analytical procedures and are thus hard to compare. Here, we present new molecular data for this region that confirm the presence of transgenes in three of 23 localities sampled in 2001.

Transgene sequences were not detected in samples taken in 2002 from nine localities, while directed samples taken in 2004 from two of the positive 2001 localities were again found to contain transgenic sequences.

These findings suggest the persistence or re-introduction of transgenes up until 2004 in this area.

We address variability in recombinant sequence detection by analyzing the consistency of current molecular assays.

We also present theoretical results on the limitations of estimating the probability of transgene detection in samples taken from landraces.

The inclusion of a limited number of female gametes and, more importantly, aggregated transgene distributions may significantly lower detection probabilities.

Our analytical and sampling considerations help explain discrepancies among different detection efforts, including the one presented here, and provide considerations for the establishment of monitoring protocols to detect the presence of transgenes among structured populations of landraces.

This is not the first time transgenes have been found in the wild as GMO seed dispersal also leads to engineered seed establishing itself amid original species and cross-pollinating, as appears to be the case in relation to certain grasses.

Thanks to Balneus for pointing me in the direction of this information.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Sometimes the Internet is so.....

Here I was paddling about the pond thinking that I was looking as handsome as any other duck.
Then I entered Wealth benchmarks International and found that my plumage ranking was in the bottom 3% of all Aussie ducks.
Now I don't know whether to be depressed at the sad state of my feathers or glad that so few people share my fate.
Perhaps I should give Joe Hockey a ring........

Australian National Day of Mourning, 22 February 2009

Marysville, Victoria, before the February 2009 bushfires razed the town

“February 7 will become etched in our national memory as a day of disaster, of death and of mourning and it is very important that the nation grieves,”
“The National Day of Mourning will allow us all an opportunity to honour those who lost their lives in the fires, support those who have suffered and recognise the work of our emergency services.
"This day will give all Australians the chance to reflect and remember this terrible tragedy, as an important step in rebuilding these communities." [Hon. Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia]

Memorial Service details

Are anti-terrorism laws beginning to quietly unravel?

Perhaps countries like Australia, who post-9/11 rushed headlong into drafting draconian anti-terrorism legislation, will now think again about the troublesome law created and the impact this has on the health of individuals, well being of families and justice within society.

The European Commission of Human Rights issued this media release last Thursday concerning the application of 11 individuals (six of Algerian nationality; four respectively, of French, Jordanian, Moroccan and Tunisian nationality; and, one, born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, being stateless).

Although compensation mentioned is relatively small, it represents another step in addressing the issue of bad law.

The European Court of Human Rights has today delivered at a public hearing its Grand Chamber judgment¹ in the case of A. and Others v. the United Kingdom (application no. 3455/05).

The case concerned the applicants' complaints that they were detained in high security conditions under a statutory scheme which permitted the indefinite detention of non-nationals certified by the Secretary of State as suspected of involvement in terrorism.

The Court held unanimously that there had been:

· no violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) taken alone or in conjunction with Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of all the applicants, except the Moroccan applicant whose complaints under these articles were declared inadmissible;

· a violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) of the Convention in respect of all the applicants, except the Moroccan and French applicants who had elected to leave the United Kingdom, since it could not be said that the applicants were detained with a view to deportation and since, as the House of Lords had found, the derogating measures which permitted their indefinite detention on suspicion of terrorism discriminated unjustifiably between nationals and non-nationals;

· a violation of Article 5 § 4 (right to have lawfulness of detention decided by a court) in respect of two of the Algerian applicants, the stateless and Tunisian applicants, because they had not been able effectively to challenge the allegations against them; and,

· a violation of Article 5 § 5 in respect of all the applicants, except the Moroccan and French applicants, on account of the lack of an enforceable right to compensation for the above violations.

The Court made awards under Article 41 (just satisfaction) which were substantially lower than those which it had made in past cases of unlawful detention, in view of the fact that the detention scheme was devised in the face of a public emergency and as an attempt to reconcile the need to protect the United Kingdom public against terrorism with the obligation not to send the applicants back to countries where they faced a real risk of ill-treatment. The Court therefore awarded, to the six Algerian applicants 3,400 euros (EUR), EUR 3,900, EUR 3,800, EUR 3,400, EUR 2,500 and EUR 1,700, respectively; to the stateless and Tunisian applicants EUR 3,900, each; and to the Jordanian applicant, EUR 2,800. The applicants were jointly awarded EUR 60,000 for legal costs. (The judgment is available in English and French.)

Full copy of summary here.

Fairies union flies to the rescue?

Bet Crickey had fun typing this one:

"Production on the childrens' television series Fairies, which airs on Channel Seven, has halted. The series is filmed in Adelaide, it follows the adventures of fairies Harmony, Rhapsody and their magical friends. It was meant to go back into production last week but when the producers got wind that the fairies wanted a union agreement production was halted. The fairies' union is taking legal action.

I'm clapping for Tinkerbelle - how 'bout you?

Terminology matters when you are trying to pick a fight

I have seen a number of amusing comments of late attached to posts concerning the nature of 'blogging' or the content of specific blogs. Some of these observations have been marred by confusing word use.

As Meg Pickard created a nice definition table some time back, I though I would post it here for the edification of the totally confused.

Clean up Australia Day 1st March 2009

It's Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday 1st March 2009 and up and down the NSW North Coast people are starting to organise their participation in keeping our little patch of paradise environmentally sound.

So if you are interested, go to Cleanup.org and look for a place nearby where locals will be gathering to volunteer for a worthwhile working bee that weekend.