Microsoft threatens & Networks disables whistleblower website, but......

Everytime one turns around some government or multinational corporation appears to be gathering data concerning our lives and habits and, in the process attempting to treat citizens/customers as though they have little or no right to know the extent of these activities.

This time it was Microsoft's turn to be outed and Cryptome posted a downloadable file titled Microsoft Spy Guide which contained the company document Microsoft Global Criminal Compliance Handbook, March 2008.

This document opens with information concerning its online Free Email Services @hotmail.com @msn.com @live.com, Authentication Service: Windows Live ID, Instant Messaging: Windows Live Messenger, Social Networking Services: Windows Live Spaces & MSN Groups, Custom Domains: Windows Live Admin Center & Office Live Small Business, Online File Storage: Office Live Workspace & Windows Live SkyDrive, and Gaming: Xbox Live :

Microsoft Online Services will respond to emergency requests outside of normal business hours if the emergency involves "the danger of death or physical injury to any person…" as permitted in 18 U.S.C. § 2702(b)(8) and (c)(4). Emergencies are limited to situations like kidnapping, murder threats, bomb threats, terrorism threats, etc. If you have an emergency request, please call the law enforcement hotline at

(425) 722-1299.....

Microsoft has established local contacts within your country or region to handle legal process related to Microsoft Online Services. If you are not already familiar with your local contact, please e-mail the Global Criminal Compliance team at globalcc@microsoft.com, and you will be directed to the local contact handling requests from your country.

All legal process for criminal matters from non-U.S. law enforcement, prosecutors and courts must be directed to Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052 and not to Microsoft's local subsidiary as all Microsoft Online Services customer data is stored in the U.S. Your local contact will be able to educate you as to what local process must be followed in order to obtain online services customer account records from Microsoft.

Details of the war of words between the whistleblower website and Microsoft can be found at The People's Forum. Cryptome itself is no longer accessible on the Internet as of yesterday 25 February 2010.

However, as usual netizens reacted and now the original Crypotme document (1.75MB PDF or 29KB TXT) can be found at Scribd here.

Why the Microsoft Corporation feels that its customers should not be aware of the extent of their potential exposure (due to company policy and legislated requirements under U.S. law), or why it wants to embarrass itself by drawing attention to a posted copy of the document it was wishing to conceal, remains a mystery.

This desire to hide from the general public its ability and willingness to data gather and store information over long periods is an attitude it appears to share with other big corporations and government agencies around the world.

Aw tell me it ain't so, Stevo! You haven't gone and nobbled a government website?

This is the content of the very small tag cloud found on the Dept. of Broadband, Communications, Digital Economy and Compulsory National Censorship webpage Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy,Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate:

NBN Broadband
National Broadband
Network ABC
Broadcasting National Broadcasters
SBS Digital Switchover
Digital Television Youth Advisory Group
Cyber-Safety
Internet Budget E-Health
Mobile Services

Looks unexceptional don't it?
Then someone on a Whirlpool forum asked themselves a question. Why isn't the search term "ISP filtering" or similar up there somewhere?
After all that term is found in about 63 media releases archived on the website and presumably cyber visitors go looking.

Oh noes! came the answer, the word cloud has been nobbled!

Filtering already begun! :)

User #185532 8 posts Rupple Forum Regular

I find this one rather humorous, on Conroy's website, if you take a look at the right hand side there is the "cloud" for searched items, the more searched the phrase or word is, the larger the item is. Looking at the source code of the site, there is the entire list of words that the script uses to determine the cloud words and how prevelant they are. Basically breaks it down to an array, counts and then sets the size based on how frequent it is etc... In the script that generates the cloud, there is a line that says basically if the seach term is "ISP Filtering" to skip and go onto the next. In the time I was on the site, there were about 16 instances of "ISP Filtering" in the cloud, and only about 5 instances of E-Health, though ISP Filtering did not show in the cloud.... Anyway just a funny, and some food for thought! :) //for(var i=0; i<unique.length; i++) for(var i=0; i<=15/*<-Important! increase this value by 1 everytime a keyword is excluded below*/; i++) { var z=0; for(var j=0; j<split.length; j++) { if (unique[i]==split[j]) { z=z+1; } counts[i] = z; } var size = getTagClass(z); //Customise the tag-cloud to display what shows up if (unique[i] == "ISP Filtering") { continue; } document.write('<a class="'+size+'" href=\"http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/search?q='+unique[i]+'">'+unique[i]+'</a> '); } document.write('</p>'); document.write('</div>'); } EDIT: Thought I should add the URL of the site, incase people get confused with stephen-conroy.com :) This is on the minister for broadband and other random crap that he has no idea about site.... URL: http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/

State of Play in the Climate Change Cyberspace War

In ABC online The Drum's Unleashed four articles have been posted by journalist and former Greens candidate for the seat of Higgins Clive Hamilton this week as part of a series of five:

Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial

Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?

Think tanks, oil money and black ops

Manufacturing a scientific scandal

Who's defending science? (update - last article in series)

Reading these in conjunction with Jonathon Holmes' Malice, misquotes and Media Watch and an earlier The Punch article by Paul Coglan The holy war on climate change and a picture of the Australian state of play emerges in what has to be seen as an ongoing war on science.

The comments sections on these mainstream media webpages are littered with climate change denialists and this particular comment directed at Hamilton is fairly typical in attitude of the whole which survive after moderation for offensive language, defamation, hate speech etc:

moredissent4u : 23 Feb 2010 9:46:36pm

Clive Hamilton cannot countenance that his tome, Death Rattles of the Climate Change Sceptics, has come back to bite him. Sceptics who baulk at dire predictions of apocalypse are branded as heretics and deniers.
Hamilton is yet another egregious elite who cannot abide any dissent from his thought bubbles. The pathetic prohibition banner on this site screams censorship. Clive has proclaimed that Andrew Bolt is the enemy who will lead us astray. To exorcise the devil incarnate, Clive decrees we proles are forbidden from partaking of the fruit.
Like many who are sceptical of the exaggerated impact of AGW, I am neither paid for my stance nor will I be bullied into abjurement by battalions of sanctimonious self appointed censors. Hamilton's current obdurate diatribe reeks of a petulant, self-righteous boy who will not accept he too is fallible.
Whilst I do not condone any threatening of scientists or journalists by anyone, I noted that comments on Bolt's Blog deemed threatening by Pitman, demonstrates that precious Pitman borders on becoming paranoid.
I cannot wait to discover exactly whom Hamilton will traduce in his next noxious edition!

What set off these claims of screaming censorship and decree forbidding to him/her the fruit of Andrew Bolt's 'wisdom'?

Why this November 2009 graphic downloaded from kathleenjoyful's Flickr photostream and pasted alongside Hamilton's second article:

Kathleen Mac's original image came with the caption; I recommend sticking these on your monitor if you don't want to add extra rage to your day after reading one of Andrew Bolt's blog posts. She made no further comment.

It seems that she has now become collateral damage in the climate change cyberspace war.

Japan rapidly becoming a rogue state on the high seas

Photograph from The Sydney Morning Herald on 24 July 2007

From an article in The Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday 25 February 2010:

Australia has been urged to harpoon a proposal which could see Antarctic whaling continue for years - and become more legally secure.
A group of nations, which includes Australia, has issued a proposed deal-breaker on the vexed international issue of whaling.
The draft deal would lift the ban on commercial whaling, while reducing the total number of whales killed each year by ending so-called "scientific" whaling.
There are indications key nations support the deal and it could succeed.
Conservation groups are angry and want Australia to use its position to fight against the proposal.
The deal has been issued by a "small working group" of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which includes Australia and Japan.
It is a draft deal which has not yet been approved; it is understood Australia will not support it.
Currently, commercial whaling is banned but countries can hunt whales in the name of science. Up to 1900 whales are killed each year.
The proposal would lift the commercial ban. Japan would legally be able to hunt whales without relying on the "science" justification.
The pay-off is that the proposal says the number of whales hunted would be significantly reduced from current levels.
The new deal would appear to allow for the hunting of minke whales, fin and humpback whales in the southern hemisphere.
It would come into force on November 1 this year.

There is a high degree of probability that Japan would seek to raise its kill quota in the future if this proposal passed.
The Government of Japan already appears to believe it has the divine right of kings when it comes to the world's oceans.
It's whaling fleet has been reported as indulging in indiscrimate killing of whale females in calf.
Right now Japan is floating the possibilty that it will refuse to abide by any European Union ban on commercial blue fin tuna fishing.

Japan is a already a bad neigbour to Australia and the rest of the world and, is rapidly becoming a rogue state on the high seas.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd needs to fight the Government of Japan on the matter of pseudo scientific-commercial whaling. He needs to do this swiftly and strongly.
It's time he stopped allowing himself to be held to ransom on the basis that any escalation of our continued firm opposition to killing whales would offend a major trading partner.

Saffin on capital punishment and torture

Janelle Saffin Labor MP for Page on the NSW North Coast on her feet in the Australian Parliament, 22 February 2010:

I speak in strong support of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Bill 2009 for a number of reasons. Firstly, I oppose the death penalty. I oppose torture and other forms of degrading treatment. And I do so on moral grounds. We come to this place with a whole lot of roles. But we are also law-makers and as a law-maker I do not have the right to pass a law that would allow the state to execute another citizen or subject another citizen to torture or other forms of degrading treatment. I do not see that any lawmaker, in Australia, in any country, has that right. It is not a right that is given to us. We have to protect life and we have to protect human beings and human dignity. So it is totally on moral grounds that I oppose those things.

Full speech at OpenAustralia

Ms. Saffin's second reading speech was unequivocal in its opposition to the death penalty. In this she supports the Rudd Government move to remove the death penalty as a potential option for both the Commonwealth and the states.

In marked contrast to Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott who appears to waiver on the subject - this month declaring that execution may be a fitting punishment for those responsible for mass death.

Whether this was just another Abbott grab for a media moment or something he clearly thinks should be debated will only be shown by what he says and how he votes in the House of Representatives torture and death penalty debate.
Oh wait, it looks like he won't be speaking on the subject in parliament - preferring to dog whistle instead.

Something another North Coast MP, the Nationals Luke Hartsuyker, appears to be emulating in that he too has been rather silent in the House on this subject so far, intent as he is on beating up on vulnerable flying foxes at public meetings in his electorate.

It is good to see at least one local MP taking human rights seriously.
I commend all those members of the federal parliament who have spoken out against the death penalty over the last four years.

The anti-science winged nuts are at it again

If you think your blood pressure can cope with a snippet from one recent anti-science email newsletter, read on:

The Next Climate-gate?

The global warming scandal keeps getting worse. But probably the most damaging report has come from Joseph D'Aleo, the first Director of Meteorology and co-founder of the Weather Channel, and Anthony Watts, a meteorologist and founder of SurfaceStations.org. In a January 29 report, they find that starting in 1990, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began systematically eliminating climate measuring stations in cooler locations around the world. Yes, that's right. They began eliminating stations that tended to record cooler temperatures and drove up the average measured temperature. The eliminated stations had been in higher latitudes and altitudes, inland areas away from the sea, as well as more rural locations. The drop in the number of weather stations was dramatic, declining from more than 6,000 stations to fewer than 1,500.

For the full report see

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf

I'm sure that these practicing ratbags have been breeding in dark corners for years unnoticed until now. Is it time to bait with 1040 yet?

It's the greed, stupid!

It's a tragedy that men have died installing government subsidized roof insulation and that some homeowners have had house fires as a result of faulty installation.
However banging on about ministerial responsibility and calling for Environment Minister Peter Garrett's resignation allows the real culprits off scot free.
It was those business owners who contracted with householders to install roof insulation (and sometimes then sub-contracted the work to unskilled individuals) who are responsible for the dangerous manner in which some of this insulation was laid down.
Their greedy desire to gain as many customers as they could, do as many jobs as humanly achievable in the least possible time with insulation material which gave them the biggest profit margin, which led to the deaths and housefires as surely as night follows day.
They cared for nothing except their own bank balances and should be publicly condemned.
Tony Abbott won't bay for their blood though because most of these business owners will be voting at the Australian federal election this year and he wants to be the next PM.

Anon
Maclean

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak at live dot com dot au for consideration.

Tony Abbott only winning back some of the once rusted-on Coaltion voters?

From an Essential Report poll of 1,834 respondents released on 22 February 2010:

Approval of the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott

Voter approval comparison between Turnbull and Abbott as Coalition leaders.
Click on table to enlarge

Just under half (45%) of those surveyed approve of the job Tony Abbott is doing as Opposition Leader, 36% disapprove and 18% don't know.

This gives Tony Abbott a net approval rating of +9%.

This is the highest approval rating that has been recorded for Abbott in the Essential Report thus far and higher than Turnbull ever scored in our polling.

Results followed party lines – Coalition voters were more likely to approve of the job Abbott is doing (79%), while Labor voters were more likely to disapprove (58%). 28% of Labor voters approve of the job Abbott is doing as Opposition Leader.

68% of Green voters disapprove of the job Abbott is doing as Opposition Leader and 19% of these same voters approve.

People aged 65 years and over were more likely to approve of the job Abbott is doing (68%), while younger voters were more likely to indicate they don't know (37%).

Males were more likely than females to approve of the job Abbott is doing as Opposition Leader (47% v 43%).

Over half (57%) of Australians surveyed think that if Tony Abbott and the Liberals win the next election it is likely that they will introduce at least some parts of WorkChoices, 23% think it is unlikely and 20% don't know.

77% of Labor voters, 65% of Green voters and 50% of Coalition voters think that it is likely that at least some parts of WorkChoices will be introduced if Abbott and the Liberals win the next election.

People aged 45 – 55 were more likely to think that if the Liberal party wins the next election, at least some parts of WorkChoices will be introduced (68%), while people aged 65 years and over were more inclined to think it is unlikely some parts of WorkChoices will be introduced if the Liberals win the next election (32%).