Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie had second thoughts - too late!

An attempt by Senator Lambie to delete a divisive tweet on the Twitter record, 18 February 2016.

Image found at Politwoops.com

The sad and sorry saga of an Iluka development application notice sign

Not good enough! say Iluka residents over at ILUKA DA...Have Your Say - and with good reason.

This is a notice that Clarence Valley Council "erected" to notify Iluka village that a development application ha been lodged for a 162 lot subdivision:

This is what the use of ordinary office paper, weathering and the failure of sticky tape very quickly did to this notice:

Culminating in the final blow:

Images from ILUKA DA...Have Your Say & Iluka residents

Apple and FBI in far-reaching legal fight over the security of all our digital devices

Last week the world became aware of this sticky situation.......

Business Insider Australia, 18 February 2016:

On Tuesday, a US judge ordered Apple to assist the FBI in unlocking an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernadino shooters. The FBI says it needs to investigate the shooters’ potential links to Islamist terror groups.

This is what the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California court order of 16 February 2016 stated in part:

For good cause shown, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that:

1. Apple shall assist in enabling the search of a cellular telephone, Apple make: iPhone 5C, Model: A1532, on the Verizon Network, (the “Subject Device”) pursuant to a warrant of this Court by providing reasonable technical assistance to assist law enforcement agents in obtaining access to the data on the SUBJECT DEVICE.

2. Apple's reasonable technical assistance shall accomplish the following three important functions: (1) it will bypass or disable the auto-erase function whether or not it has been enabled; (2) it will enable the FBI to submit passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE for testing electronically via the physical device port, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other protocol available on the SUBJECT and (3) it will ensure that when the FBI submits passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE, software running on the device will not purposefully introduce any additional delay between passcode attempts beyond what is incurred by Apple hardware.

3. Apple's reasonable technical assistance may include, but is not limited to: providing the FBI with a signed iPhone Software file, recovery bundle, or other Software Image File that can be loaded onto the SUBJECT DEVICE. The SIF will load and run from Random Access Memory and will not modify the iOS on the actual phone, the user data partition or system partition on the device’s flash memory. The SIF will be coded by Apple with a unique identifier of the phone so that the SIF would only load and execute. The SIF will be on the SUBJECT DEVICE loaded via Device Firmware Upgrade mode, recovery mode, or other applicable mode available to the FBI. Once active on the SUBJECT DEVICE, the SIF will accomplish the three functions specified in paragraph 2. The SIF will be loaded on the SUBJECT DEVICE at either a government facility, or alternatively, at an Apple facility; if the latter, Apple shall provide the government with remote access to the SUBJECT DEVICE through a computer allowing the government to conduct passcode recovery analysis.

So why does the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation need Apples' help to unlock that particular iPhone?

Well, according to the Brisbane Times on 21 February, it seems the FBI made a data retrieval error when the phone came into its possession:

In the chaotic aftermath of the shootings in San Bernardino, California, in December, FBI investigators seeking to recover data from the iPhone of one of the shooters asked a technician in the California county to reset the phone's iCloud password.

That apparent fog-of-war error has foreclosed the possibility of an automatic backup by the phone to the Apple iCloud servers that might have turned up more clues to the origins of the terrorist attack that killed 14 people.

"The county and the FBI were working together cooperatively to obtain data, and at the point when it became clear the only way to accomplish the task at hand was to reset the iCloud password, the FBI asked the county to do so, and the county complied," said David Wert, a spokesman for San Bernardino County.

The Justice Department disclosed the misstep in a court filing on Friday

Now both Apple and the entire global digital community are supposed to suffer a diminution in the level of online privacy and safety they currently enjoy, in order for the FBI to save face.

This is Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s letter to all customers defying that U.S. court order:

February 16, 2016

A Message to Our Customers

The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand. 

This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.

The Need for Encryption

Smartphones, led by iPhone, have become an essential part of our lives. People use them to store an incredible amount of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos, our music, our notes, our calendars and contacts, our financial information and health data, even where we have been and where we are going.

All that information needs to be protected from hackers and criminals who want to access it, steal it, and use it without our knowledge or permission. Customers expect Apple and other technology companies to do everything in our power to protect their personal information, and at Apple we are deeply committed to safeguarding their data.

Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.

For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.

The San Bernardino Case

We were shocked and outraged by the deadly act of terrorism in San Bernardino last December. We mourn the loss of life and want justice for all those whose lives were affected. The FBI asked us for help in the days following the attack, and we have worked hard to support the government’s efforts to solve this horrible crime. We have no sympathy for terrorists.

When the FBI has requested data that’s in our possession, we have provided it. Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case. We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal.

We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

The Threat to Data Security

Some would argue that building a backdoor for just one iPhone is a simple, clean-cut solution. But it ignores both the basics of digital security and the significance of what the government is demanding in this case.

In today’s digital world, the “key” to an encrypted system is a piece of information that unlocks the data, and it is only as secure as the protections around it. Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge.

The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.

The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.

We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack. For years, cryptologists and national security experts have been warning against weakening encryption. Doing so would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data. Criminals and bad actors will still encrypt, using tools that are readily available to them.

A Dangerous Precedent

Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority.

The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.

The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.

We are challenging the FBI’s demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country. We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications.

While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.

Tim Cook

The Liberal Member for Fadden - drowning not waving

Once the pecuniary interest dam burst the water just keep rising……..

via Fighting Tories

Almost three years after the event, voters now learn that disgraced former Minister for Human Services, Liberal MP Stuart Robert, as the then Shadow Minister for Defence, Science, Technology and Personnel had decided to have a look at one of his investments - an Evolution Mining gold mine in North Queensland.

Like many MPs before him, he decided that the taxpayer should foot his expenses. 

Robert managed this by tagging himself onto an official state visit to the mine and then billing for his overnight stay in Brisbane and travel:

Travel Allowance

9 Apr 13 Brisbane Shadow Minister - Official Business 1 night $376.00

Airfares

10 Apr 13 - Brisbane to Townsville $368.82

10 Apr 13 - Townsville to Brisbane $722.67

Comcar

10 Apr 13 - Brisbane $44.80

10 Apr 13 - Brisbane $40.00

10 Apr 13 - Brisbane $119.75
TOTAL
$1,672.04

Then he was finally caught out:

A former senior staffer in Mr Newman’s office said yesterday that the revelations in The Australian of travel claims by Mr Robert for the trip to north Queensland on April 10, 2013, were “very surprising and concerning”. “I recall that it was reinforced to us at the time that he was travelling in a private capacity, that he was attending unofficially,’’ the staffer said.

On 17 February 2016, a day after the letter to the Dept. of Finance, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported that the beleaguered Stuart Robert had regained formal control of his own company, Robert International, on Monday 15 February.

Robert had re-organised his business interests in 2010 according to The Australian:

His register of interests shows his investments are held in a company called Robert Investment House. This in turn is owned by Robert International, which lists his parents — 78-year-old Alan and 75-year-old Dorothy — as directors and shareholders.

The investment company was previously held by Mr Robert, but was transferred to his parents three weeks after the 2010 election.

At this time Robert and his wife also ceased to be trustees of the Robert Family Trust and the Robert Investments Family Trust according to his statement of registrable interests in 2010, so it is probably safe to assume that he is looking to replace his parents as trustees of these entities as well.

In the same Gold Coast Bulletin article of 17 February it was reported:

He would not reveal whether he knew at the time he held shares in the mining company.

“In Evolution? I wouldn’t have even thought of it,” he said.

“If I had, it would have been declared.”

Now Robert’s attempt to deflect the question may not have been the wisest choice.

On 13 May 2011 in his Statement of Registrable Interests Robert declared the acquisition of Conquest Mining shares and, as there was a merger of Catalpa Resources with Conquest Mining in November 2011 forming Evolution Mining it beggars belief that Robert would not have been aware that he now owned Evolution shares.

By 6 February 2012 he had declared shares under the merged company's new name.

Again, it is hardly likely that someone who appears to consider themselves a professional investor would forget that he owned shares in a mining company in their own home state.

In October 2012 Stuart Robert would have opened Evolution Mining’s annual report and on the first page of the Executive Chairman’s Report would have read:

In the 2012 Financial Year we produced 280,401 ounces of gold (attributable), in-line with our guidance, at an average cash operating cost of A$771 per ounce, significantly below our guidance. This is an extremely satisfying outcome in only eight months as a new company.

Something I suspect he remembered six months later when he organised that trip to Townsville.

Come down from your citadel Cardinal Pell and tell us what you knew

Vatican Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy Cardinal George Pell has always enjoyed due process in any Australian court case, state inquiry or royal commission concerning child sexual abuse at which he was a witness and, observation over time would lead an ordinary person to conclude that his various religious titles have afforded him what amounts to favoured treatment by both the police and legal profession.

Fair treatment was also afforded Pell in the 2002 internal Catholic Church inquiry into his past conduct as a seminarian in the early 1960s.

Given that barely a year after appearing before the Victorian Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Organisations Pell announced he was leaving Australia to reside permanently in the Vatican from 31 March 2014 and; after initial witness appearances on 24 & 26 March 2014 has now thrice refused to comeback to give evidence in person again at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (preferring to be questioned by video link on 21 August 2014 & this coming 29 February 2016); is it any wonder that in the face of his obvious sense of entitlement the mood has finally swung sharply against this man?

A new twist to Cardinal Pell's reluctance to return to Australia was revealed on the front page¹ of the Herald Sun on 20 February 2016:

These allegations concerning Pell seem to spring from information received by Victoria Police's Sano Task Force:

The new allegations (which Cardinal Pell denies) are likely to compound the community response which finally spilled over four days earlier.........

This song is for the survivors

Tim Minchin

https://youtu.be/EtHOmforqxk

ABC News, 16 February 2016:

Ballarat survivors of sexual abuse plan to travel to Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell give evidence to the royal commission into child sex abuse, as a result of a crowdfunding campaign.

Cardinal Pell will remain in Rome after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse accepted a doctor's report that said he was too sick to return to testify in Australia.

Comedian Meshel Laurie and television presenter Gorgi Coghlan started a GoFundMe page to send 15 people, including representatives from the City of Ballarat, survivors and support people to Rome for the hearing.

The campaign exceeded its target of $55,000 after the fundraising page was shared more than 3,100 times on Facebook and Twitter.

At midnight on Tuesday it was nearing $75,000 at 2.17pm on Wednesday it was over $100,000, at 11.07am on Thursday it was over $175,000, at 8am on Friday it was nearing $189,000 at 4.36pm on Saturday it was $202,210, including an anonymous donation of $10,000.

The campaign aimed to raise the funds before the hearing on February 29 and says "the opportunity to face Cardinal Pell is the least our community can do for these brave people who have bared their souls to ensure the world is a safer place for all children".

Abuse survivors like Stephen Woods want Cardinal Pell to give evidence in an "open" place like the Australian embassy where they can watch.

"It has to be somewhere where he's not in control, his lawyers are not in control and that way he will actually be pushed to give better answers than the usual 'I can't remember'," he said.

"We want to see a candidness that we haven't seen before with Cardinal Pell.

"We want to see honesty. We want to see a veracity, transparency.

"That will be really good to see face to face." [my updates in red]

ABC News, 17 February 2016:

Former New South Wales Labor premier and Catholic Kristina Keneally said she laughed when she first heard the song, but on second listening was brought to tears.

"It spoke really deeply to the abject failure of the Catholic Church to deal with the child sexual abuse crisis," Ms Keneally said.

"I have yet to see from the Vatican the type of frank, honest, acknowledgement of the damage that it has done and the recognition of the things that need to change in the Catholic Church to ensure this never happens again."

Tim Minchin's song peaked at number one on the Australian iTunes songs chart on Wednesday 17 February and reached 825,569 YouTube video views by the following Saturday.

Footnote

1. Apparently the Vatican, Cardinal Pell and senior clergy in Australia are more concerned with who leaked the latest sexual abuse allegations to the media rather than focusing on the possible suffering those allegations might represent. 
Having grown up in a predominately Catholic community, with one paedophile priest having free run of the local primary school and another frequently entertained in their homes by parents of young children, I understand the scale of such offending by men hiding behind the authority of black cassocks and birettas. 
In fact both these men appear to have gone to their graves unaccountable for their predatory behaviour and unremarked by the wider community. 
It is beyond belief that the Vatican still doesn't acknowledge the true historical scale of sexual abuse and fails to immediately request that named ordained priests (including cardinals) stand down pending the results of any such police investigations.

Best Political Meme of the Week

via @popculturechris 

Journalist Lenore Taylor listening to incoming Federal Minister for Trade and Investment Steve Ciobo

Quote of the Week

“People say, ‘It’s OK, you can have another, you weren’t really attached, you didn’t know them’,” she said.

“There’s this feeling you shouldn’t grieve, and that’s wrong. From the moment you fall pregnant, these hopes, dreams and thoughts are in your head and heart. You love them from the moment they’re conceived.” [Grieving mother quoted in an article concerning neonatal death published online at news.com.au, 30 January 2016]