This blog is open to any who wish to comment on Australian society, the state of the environment or political shenanigans at Federal, State and Local Government level.
In the matter of the search of an Apple iPhone seized during the
execution of a search warrant on a Black Lexus IS300, California license plate
35kgd203 and the demand that Apple Inc. create new software to break its own privacy safeguards and potentially its encryption codes, the IT world steps in to help.
The latest figure with
an opinion on the fight between Apple and the FBI is none other than NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden.
His conclusion? The
FBI's claim that only Apple can bypass the security of the iPhone used by a
terrorist is bogus.
"The FBI says Apple
has the 'exclusive technical means' of getting into this phone," Snowden
said Tuesday.
Snowden called the claim
malarky, without using such a polite term. "Respectfully, that's
bulls***," he said.
The former National
Security Agency contractor, who fled the US and lives in Russia, made the
remarks while speaking via a video link from Moscow at advocacy
group Common Cause's conference in Washington DC.
*Federal Environment Minister and Liberal MP for Flinders Greg Hunt
won the inaugural Best Minister in the World award at the 4th UAE World Government Summit (7-10 February 2016) permanently hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Dubai. The award was created by the summit organisers. It definitely wasn't something his mum made up - it really happened.
This time it is independent candidate in the NSW New England electorate, Tony Windsor, on the receiving line for daring to stand in a seat held by Nationals Deputy-Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and it’s the Murdoch media which is behaving like toddler in full tantrum mode:
The federal election writs haven’t been issued yet and there was Robert Bou-HamdanakaBig Rob on his "Lismore Radio" Facebook page scattering aspersions:
It seems unusual that the former MP, who states her strong opposition to coal seam gas locally and who should understand the need for Australia to secure its oil and gas needs into the future, would be working so hard for another country against us while also running as the Labor candidate for the seat of Page - a role designed to represent and protect our interests both locally, nationally and Internationally.
What information is the former MP providing to Timor-Leste as their Senior Legal Adviser?
Oh dear, it’s apparently ‘treason’ time at Big Rob’s place where he seems to be offended by the notion that a lawyer before entering politics should return to that same profession after losing at the 2013 federal election. As for being "their Senior Legal Adviser" - it is my understanding that Ms. Saffin resigned as legal adviser to Jose Ramos-Horta before the start of the official 2007 federal election campaign which saw her successfully win the seat of Page and, I expect that she will have followed the same course of action in 2016 as she re-contests the same seat
I wonder if Big Rob can spell d-e-f-a-m-a-t-i-o-n?
One would have thought he would be busy enough with ongoing court proceedings since January this year as it is:
On 12 December 2013, less than three months after the Liberal-Nationals Coalition won government, ITnews reported:
The Coalition is already predicting an $11.5 billion blowout to the cost of building its version of the national broadband network, but says it will still cost less than Labor's scheme….
the Coalition's own pre-election pledges proved overly optimistic, with costs expected to come in at "around" $41 billion rather than the promised $29.5 billion.
The 2016 forecast to bring 25 Mbps to all Australians has also been canned. Instead, the Coalition predicts it will be able to bring download speeds of up to 25 Mbps to 43 percent of premises in Australia's fixed-line footprint by that time.
The Coalition's approach "should also be able to deliver access to wholesale speeds of up to 50 Mbps to 90 percent of Australia's fixed-line footprint and wholesale speeds of up to 100 Mbps to 65-75 percent by 2019".
The Coalition will only guarantee these speeds to NBN Co's wholesale customers — internet service providers. There will no longer be a guarantee of what each end user will see in terms of speeds delivered to the home.
On 25 August 2015, almost two years after Abbott & Co formed government, itWirereported the deteriorating NBN situation thus: It’s official. The Coalition version of the NBN, with its inferior copper technology, will cost as much as Labor’s all-fibre version – on the Government’s own figures.
In February last year – 18 months ago – I sat in a room full of IT journalists and heard Malcolm Turnbull’s deputy, Paul Fletcher, admit that the Coalition’s costings of Labor’s planned NBN had been exaggerated.
Before the September 2013 election Turnbull and Fletcher and Abbott and the rest of the Coalition, when they weren’t chanting ‘Stop the Boats!’ and ‘Axe the Tax’, were endlessly repeating the unsubstantiated talking point that Labor’s NBN would cost $90 billion, more than twice ALP Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s estimate of $39 billion.
Then Fletcher, in February 2014 said in a public forum, in a direct response to my question, and in front of dozens of witnesses, that NBN Co’s internal review of Labor’s NBN had costed it at $56 billion, much closer to Labor’s figure than the inflated estimate the Coalition took to the election.
When I quizzed him on the disparity between the Coalition’s $90 billion estimate of a FTTP network and the much lower NBN Co estimate (made by the management team the Coalition had put into place) of $56 billion, the best Fletcher could say was that the Coalition estimate “may have been a little high”.
Now it seems its estimate of its cut-down version of the NBN ‘may have been a little low’. The big advantage of the Coalition’s ‘multi technology mix’ model, in which millions of households will receive fibre-to-the-node rather than fibre-to-the-home, was supposed to be that it would be a lot cheaper.
Now the CEO of NBN Co, at the briefing accompanying the release of the company’s annual financial figures, has said that the Coalition’s ‘multi technology mix’ NBN will cost at least $46 billion and may cost as much as $56 billion – EXACTLY the same figure that Malcolm Turnbull’s handpicked experts had estimated the Labor FTTH NBN would cost…
A $15 billion blowout in the cost of building the national broadband network, partly caused by the slow rollout of key broadband services, could make the internet more expensive for Australians, M2 Group chief executive Geoff Horth said.
NBN on Monday revealed that the cost of building the project would increase by as much as 36.6 per cent to $56 billion up from the $41 billion previously forecast.
It is taking Telstra longer overall to repair phone lines damaged during extreme weather than previous years, leaving some consumers and businesses without service and ineligible for compensation.
What many people do not realise is that if NBN Co were to announce this week it was rolling out fibre-to-the-node [FTTN] internet in Punchbowl, it would become responsible for making sure Mr Patane's mud-soaked copper wires were good enough for a 50 megabit per second service.
"If it's an area designated to receive FTTN, and the copper in the street needs to be remediated and can be remediated, then we will remediate it," an NBN Co spokesman said.
"If the copper cannot be remediated, then we will use one of the other technologies we have at our disposal to provide them with a service."
NBN Co becomes responsible for maintaining the copper lines between nodes and premises. Its latest corporate plan was full of warnings that degraded copper connections could delay the roll out and increase overall costs.
"The quality of this [copper] network is not fully known as there has been limited opportunity to evaluate the physical infrastructure at significant scale," it states.
NBN chief executive Bill Morrow also revealed Telstra did not release any information about the copper network until after the $11 billion deal was renegotiated.
"If there is a case to where the copper is just in such poor condition that we can't offer the speeds that the government has made us commit to, then we won't use copper in that area. If it means pulling in fibre or fixed wireless towers, that's what we'll do," he said on August 24.
Unlike the NBN started under Labor, which planned to replace the copper connections with end-to-end fibre at 93 per cent of premises, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has asked NBN Co to redesign the network to include the copper connection at millions of premises. About 4 million households and businesses would now get a boosted copper connection, while the remainder getting fibre, cable, satellite or fixed wireless.
As at 3 March 2016, almost two and a half years after the Liberals and Nationals introduced their supposedly ‘new, improved and cheaper’ National Broadband Network (NBN) the three-year construction plan for Angourie, Freeburn Island, Iluka, Wooloweyah and Yamba is seemingly no longer relevant andthere appears to be no plan to connect most of the Northern Rivers to NBN via Fibre To The Node in the foreseeable future.
Given the aging population on the NSW Far North Coast, many of us may die still waiting for Malcolm Turnbull’s 'innovative' version of the NBN.
North Coast Voices no longer allows the Facebook Button sited at the end of each blog post to activate when it is clicked on by a reader.
This button has been deactivated because it has become clear that Facebook Inc. is not now and has never been a corporation genuinely committed to principles of digital privacy and security of Internet users' personal information and other associated data.
Unfortunately, because Blogger installs this button as part of a set, Gmail, Blog This!, Twitter, Pin Interest and Google + have also been deactivated and, we apologise to readers who may use these features.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
[Adopted and proclaimed by United Nations General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948]
Hi! My name is Boy. I'm a male bi-coloured tabby cat. Ever since I discovered that Malcolm Turnbull's dogs were allowed to blog, I have been pestering Clarencegirl to allow me a small space on North Coast Voices.
A false flag musing: I have noticed one particular voice on Facebook which is Pollyanna-positive on the subject of the Port of Yamba becoming a designated cruise ship destination. What this gentleman doesn’t disclose is that, as a principal of Middle Star Pty Ltd, he could be thought to have a potential pecuniary interest due to the fact that this corporation (which has had an office in Grafton since 2012) provides consultancy services and tourismbusiness development services.
A religion & local government musing: On 11 October 2017 Clarence Valley Council has the Church of Jesus Christ Development Fund Inc in Sutherland Local Court No. 6 for a small claims hearing. It would appear that there may be a little issue in rendering unto Caesar. On 19 September 2017 an ordained minister of a religion (which was named by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in relation to 40 instances of historical child sexual abuse on the NSW North Coast) read the Opening Prayer at Council’s ordinary monthly meeting. Earlier in the year an ordained minister (from a church network alleged to have supported an overseas orphanage closed because of child abuse claims in 2013) read the Opening Prayer and an ordained minister (belonging to yet another church network accused of ignoring child sexual abuse in the US and racism in South Africa) read the Opening Prayer at yet another ordinary monthly meeting. Nice one councillors - you are covering yourselves with glory!
An investigative musing: Newcastle Herald, 12 August 2017: The state’s corruption watchdog has been asked to investigate the finances of the Awabakal Aboriginal Local Land Council, less than 12 months after the troubled organisation was placed into administration by the state government. The Newcastle Herald understands accounting firm PKF Lawler made the decision to refer the land council to the Independent Commission Against Corruption after discovering a number of irregularities during an audit of its financial statements.The results of the audit were recently presented to a meeting of Awabakal members. Administrator Terry Lawler did not respond when contacted by the Herald and a PKF Lawler spokesperson said it was unable to comment on the matter. Given the intricate web of company relationships that existed with at least one former board member it is not outside the realms of possibility that, if ICAC accepts this referral, then United Land Councils Limited (registered New Zealand) and United First Peoples Syndications Pty Ltd(registered Australia) might be interviewed. North Coast Voices readers will remember that on 15 August 2015 representatives of these two companied gave evidence before NSW Legislative Council General Purpose Standing Committee No. 6 INQUIRY INTO CROWN LAND. This evidence included advocating for a Yamba mega port.
A Nationals musing: Word around the traps is that NSW Nats MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis has been talking up the notion of cruise ships visiting the Clarence River estuary. Fair dinkum! That man can be guaranteed to run with any bad idea put to him. I'm sure one or more cruise ships moored in the main navigation channel on a regular basis for one, two or three days is something other regular river users will really welcome. *pause for appreciation of irony* The draft of the smallest of the smaller cruise vessels is 3 metres and it would only stay safely afloat in that channel. Even the Yamba-Iluka ferry has been known to get momentarily stuck in silt/sand from time to time in Yamba Bay and even a very small cruise ship wouldn't be able to safely enter and exit Iluka Bay. You can bet your bottom dollar operators of cruise lines would soon be calling for dredging at the approach to the river mouth - and you know how well that goes down with the local residents.
A local councils musing: Which Northern Rivers council is on a low-key NSW Office of Local Government watch list courtesy of feet dragging by a past general manager?
A serial pest musing: I'm sure the Clarence Valley was thrilled to find that a well-known fantasist is active once again in the wee small hours of the morning treading a well-worn path of accusations involving police, local business owners and others.
An investigative musing: Which NSW North Coast council is batting to have the longest running code of conduct complaint investigation on record?
A which bank? musing: Despite a net profit last year of $9,227 million the Commonwealth Bank still insists on paying below Centrelink deeming rates interest on money held in Pensioner Security Accounts. One local wag says he’s waiting for the first bill from the bank charging him for the privilege of keeping his pension dollars at that bank.
A Daily Examiner musing: Just when you thought this newspaper could sink no lower under News Corp management, it continues to give column space to Andrew Bolt.
A thought to ponder musing: In case of bushfire or flood - do you have an emergency evacuation plan for the family pet?
An adoption musing: Every week on the NSW North Coast a number of cats and dogs find themselves without a home. If you want to do your bit and give one bundle of joy a new family, contact Happy Paws on 0419 404 766 or your local council pound.
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