So you think your personal and financial information is safe?

With governments at state and federal level still intent on gathering as much personal, medical and financial information concerning Australian citizens for the fledgling national data base and to facilitate inter-agency data sharing agreements, it was interesting to note yet another security breach.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 March 2011:

Hundreds of thousands of cryptographic tokens used by Australians who bank online, the Defence Force and other large corporations are vulnerable to a potential hack attack after a supplier revealed secret data it held had been stolen.
Customers of RSA, a security division of the data storage giant EMC, were on Friday told that the company had been the victim of "an extremely sophisticated cyber attack".
Federal government customers of RSA's affected SecurID service include the Department of Defence, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australian Electoral Commission, Family Court of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services, Department of Veterans' Affairs, Geoscience Australia, AusAid, Department of the Treasury and Crimtrac, according to closed tender documents listed on the AusTender website.

Open letter to RSA customers excerpt:

Our investigation has led us to believe that the attack is in the category of an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT). Our investigation also revealed that the attack resulted in certain information being extracted from RSA's systems. Some of that information is specifically related to RSA's SecurID two-factor authentication products. While at this time we are confident that the information extracted does not enable a successful direct attack on any of our RSA SecurID customers, this information could potentially be used to reduce the effectiveness of a current two-factor authentication implementation as part of a broader attack. We are very actively communicating this situation to RSA customers and providing immediate steps for them to take to strengthen their SecurID implementations.

RSA Online Fraud Centre report February 2011:

The Trojan arms race continues in 2011. It appears that the more security features put in place to protect the online channel, the farther Trojan developers will go in their attempts to infiltrate the systems, compromise security, and better hide their activities within infected computers.

Some background on Australia's attempt to create a national database:

• So you want to look through my medical records?
• Federal Labor and Health Minister Roxon crossing a bridge too far
• And these are the people Rudd & Co intend to trust with access to a national database containing all your sensitive personal information?
• e-Health: something's rotten in the State of Kevin
• Who's guarding the guards guarding your personal information?

Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan

Sometimes it seems that our imperialist overlords never learn.

Der Speigel Online 21^st March 2011:
“The suspected perpetrators are part of a group of US soldiers accused of several killings. Their court martials are expected to start soon. The photos, the army statement said, stand "in stark contrast to the discipline, professionalism and respect that have characterized our soldiers' performance during nearly 10 years of sustained operations."

Wall Street Journal 22nd March 2011:
“A soldier being court-martialed on a U.S. Army base near Seattle for the murder of three Afghan civilians has agreed to plead guilty Wednesday in hopes of earning a reduced sentence, according to one of the attorneys handling his case. "My client is admitting on the record to three counts of murder, plus one count of conspiracy to commit assault and battery and one count of illegal drug use," said Geoffrey Nathan, a lawyer….
12 soldiers charged with an array of offenses stemming from an incident last year when the Army says three Afghan civilians were murdered by members of the 5th Stryker Brigade operating in the Maiwand district of Kandahar Province.

And sometimes grandsons of Anzacs thinks it's macho to ape the attitude of these racist brutal overloads.

Canberra Times 25th March 2011:

"Controversial Facebook posts which label Afghans as ''sand niggaz'' and ''dune coons'' have prompted an urgent ADF investigation that could result in some soldiers being sacked."

Daily Telegraph 25th March 2011:

"I'm in Afghan ... now. running over c---- yeeha." "dune coons, sand niggaz. f--- em all".

This is the true face of the Coalition of the Willing. Is there no end to our national shame?

NSW Votes 2011 - links to live election news, polling updates, analysis*

A few links for those political tragics roaming cyberspace today:

• NSW State Election 2011 home page
• NSW Electoral Commission Virtual Tally Room - online from 6.30pm
• ABC Online NSW Votes 2011 - live coverage
• The Australian Online - live coverage including video
• ABC TV News 24 - will simulcast the ABC1 election coverage from 6.30pm (AEDT)
• Channel 7 NSW Election 2011 - coverage features commentary by Premier Kristina Keneally & Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell from 6.30pm to 8.30pm
• Twitter #nswvotes & #auspol

702 ABC Sydney and ABC NewsRadio will combine for a live radio simulcast from 6pm (AEDT) - coverage until 10pm.
702 ABC Sydney will also have audio streaming via abc.net.au/sydney and will broadcast live to ABC Local Radio across regional NSW and to 1233 ABC Newcastle.
2UE Radio Online NSW Election 2011 – coverage from 6pm

Someone's having a Bad Hair Day

Just because it's Saturday.........

Yamba is known by some as
the Town of the Little White Dogs
because there seems to be so many
- from almost all the different smaller breeds -
living in that small coastal village.

Earth Hour 2011 - a bit of trial for many in New South Wales?

Earth Hour falls on 26th March 2011 - tomorrow.
It falls slap in the middle of radio and television coverage of the NSW general election which is expected to give government to the Liberal-Nationals Coalition for the first time since March 1995.
Bet a few extra Nue Sou Welshie homes won't be switching off at 8.30pm - unless it's in disgust at the polling figures.
Because we're all set to get a state government which has thrown in its lot with that arch-on-again-off-again climate change sceptic, Federal Coalition Leader Tony 'I've never met a right-wing extremist I didn't like' Abbott.
Somehow I don't think dousing the lights is going to help us.

Caution. Drive slowly. Anarchists ahead

Over at Peace News Log a small anarchy bird has been released back into the wild:

"US Arms Manufacturer Lockheed Martin has the contract for the 2011 UK Census in March this year.

The arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin US makes Trident nuclear missiles, cluster bombs and fighter jets and is involved in data processing for the CIA and FBI. It has provided private contract interrogators for the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Lockheed Martin has the UK Government contract to collect the process the data for the 2011 census in March. (Observer, 20 February 2011)

If you do not complete the census form and answer all the questions (except “religion”), (or return this information on line) you could get fined £1000 and a get criminal record. The Green Party has, after some real soul searching, decided not to promote a boycott of the 2011 census after all because that could lead to further funding problems for local authorities. The census data are used to determine the financial needs of councils on the basis of the population data for their area.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Lockheed Martin is in it for the money. A principled stance by you to boycott the census will not hurt them, could provide the British Government with £1000 of your money and will make life harder for local authorities. The rational approach would be to take part in the census but make processing your return as expensive to process as possible for Lockheed Martin. Make sure that processing your return costs Lockheed Martin more that they allowed for in their tender. Don’t let them make a profit from your census return but do help to provide the data your council needs for its Government grants.

If you don’t send in your form, Lockheed Martin will still get its money and just make a higher profit for less work.

This year, for the first time, you can make your census return on line. Do not do this, for an on-line return is the cheapest and easiest option for Lockheed Martin to process.

The value of Lockheed Martin’s 2011 census contract seems to be about £150 million. See the ONS (Office for National Statistics) press release on web page:

https://2011mc.census.gov.uk/index.php?module=documents&action=view&id=14

The census form consists of 32 pages. The contract includes the processing of about 39 million census forms. This is approximately £4 per census return. This figure includes all overheads and Lockheed Martin’s profit margin, so that the company will have priced the direct processing cost per form at a lower figure. To make money out of such a contract, the handling and processing of the forms will have to be a high speed and highly automated operation. Every minute longer spent on a form than Lockheed Martin has budgeted for, will reduce their profit on the contract. It is realistic to assume that this extra cost to Lockheed Martin would be in the region of £1 per minute of extra time spent on your form if all the overheads are taken into account.

Let’s assume that they plan, using their high speed computerised scanning and data capture technology, to process a form in, say, 5 minutes from receipt at their processing centre up to finished data capture. If your form is going to take, say, at least 15 minutes because it is a little awkward to deal with (possibly longer if supervisory level staff has to resolve queries and problems), then you will have reduced Lockheed Martin’s profit by approximately £10, if not more. You can make it extremely time consuming by very simple means.

THE CENSUS PROCEDURE

Some time in March you will receive a census form in the post – probably addressed to “the householder” or “the occupier”, which someone in your household is obliged to complete. (Remember: Don’t do it on line). This must be done after the census day of 27 March. The “census day” is meant to be a snapshot of the entire population on that particular day. The form must be returned by post as “soon as possible” after 27 March. The Government website says “If you have not returned your questionnaire by 6 April, a census collector may call after that time (possibly around the end of April) to offer you any help”. There is no particular deadline line for returning the form.

Do not provide convenient contact details when filling in your census form or on any other piece of paper relating to the census. After all, nobody can force you to possess a telephone or email. Paper correspondence is much more expensive. Alternatively, accidentally change a digit of your telephone number and ditto for an email address. Everybody makes minor clerical errors, that’s just human nature........"

NSW Votes 2011 - links to live election news, polling updates, analysis

A few links for those political tragics roaming cyberspace today:

• NSW State Election 2011 home page
• NSW Electoral Commission Virtual Tally Room - online from 6.30pm
• ABC Online NSW Votes 2011 - live coverage
• The Australian Online - live coverage including video
• ABC TV News 24 - will simulcast the ABC1 election coverage from 6.30pm (AEDT)
• Channel 7 NSW Election 2011 - coverage features commentary by Premier Kristina Keneally & Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell from 6.30pm to 8.30pm
• Twitter #nswvotes & #auspol

702 ABC Sydney and ABC NewsRadio will combine for a live radio simulcast from 6pm (AEDT) - coverage until 10pm.
702 ABC Sydney will also have audio streaming via abc.net.au/sydney and will broadcast live to ABC Local Radio across regional NSW and to 1233 ABC Newcastle.
2UE Radio Online NSW Election 2011 – coverage from 6pm