Online Security

Who is Online

Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Information Technology; Category: Systems; Published: 03 August 2012; Hits: 7714

The issue of online security is never far in the background these days: high-profile TV presenters in court for downloading child pornography [link]; Julian Assange holed-up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London; or attacks by Anonymous on Melbourne IT (AAPT) records that allegedly made some of the ISP's users' private information public.

While we can all applaud the apprehension of criminals through police monitoring; and we might be swayed by Assange's assertions that corporate and government secrets are forms of conspiracy and that such conspiracy is a bad thing; we may not be so pleased by our browsing history; or worse, our medical history; or our employer's HR records being made available to a cyber bully or blackmailer.

It is increasingly difficult, perhaps impossible, to keep our personal records and secrets out of computer systems that have the potential to be hacked; as easily by the bad guys as by the good.

Depending on your point of view the vigilantly group Anonymous may be: the good; the bad; or the ugly. They say the hack at Melbourne IT was to highlight the risk of forcing ISPs to keep client's browsing records; and a protest, in general, against the proposal to give Australian police and security agencies wide sweeping powers to intercept and examine our electronic records.

The recent ABC interview with Nicola Roxon, Federal Attorney General and Neil Gaugan, Assistant Commissioner, Australian Federal Police (on 1st August 2012) was informative.

The proposed laws would allow agencies to bypass encryption by installing tracking software on a suspect's computer, presumably remotely and undetected, and by forcing users to surrender computer passwords. How: by torture? I'm sorry Your Honour I've forgotten! - OK that'll be 20 years for contempt. Maybe rendition to Guantanamo would do the trick.

One thing Neil Gaugan did say was that: 'Encryption's killing us. Encryption is extremely difficult for us. It's very expensive, very clunky, very slow to decode encrypted Internet protocols.' he did not say it was impossible to break.

When asked about the proposal to force ISPs to keep user browsing and email information for two years he said: 'What we're asking for is data retention to be across the board. So, it's in relation to if you and I emailed each other, not the content of that particular communication, but the context, i.e. when it took place, where we were when we did it, time, date.'

Anonymous has just demonstrated that this information may not be exclusive to your ISP, ASIO and the police; but could potentially fall into the hands of your business competitor; a cyber bully; or a blackmailer.

You can read the whole ABC story by Hayden Cooper in which he also interviewed a cyber activist; an IT expert; and a victim online - Click here

I have discussed many of these issues elsewhere on this website:

For issues around business records (these may include your HR records or medical history) - click here

For issues around conspiracy and Wikileaks - click here

For a discussion around secure encryption and personal privacy - click here

No comments

Travel

Israel

2024 Addendum

It's shocking that another Addendum to this article is necessary.

Yet, we are no nearer to a peaceful resolution like the, internationally called for, 'Two state solution', or some workable version thereof.

Indeed, the situation, particularly for Palestinians, has gone from bad to worse.

At the same time, Israeli losses are mounting as the war drags on. Yet, Hamas remains undefeated and Bibi remains recalcitrant.

Comments:

On Wed, 4 Sep 2024, at 1:23 PM, Barry Cross wrote:
> There seems to be no resolution to the problem of the disputed land of Israel. You consider Gaza to have been put under siege, but I wonder if that and the other Israeli acts you mention are themselves responses to a response by them of being under siege, or at least being seriously threatened, by hostile forces who do not recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel? Hamas’s claim and stated intention of establishing a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” and periodic acts of aggression need to be taken into account I suggest, when judging the actions of the Israeli’s. In addition, there is the menace coming from Iranian proxies in Southern Lebanon and Yemen, and from Iran itself.
>
> Whatever the merits of the respective claims to the contended territory might be, it seems reasonable to accept that Israeli’s to consider they are a constant threat to their very survival. Naturally, this must influence their actions, particularly in response to the many acts of aggression they have been subjected to over many decades. By way of contrast, how lucky are we!
>
> These are my off the cuff comments for what they are worth.
>
> Regards
> Barry Cross
>
> Sent from my iPhone

2023 Addendum

It's a decade since this visit to Israel in September 2014.

From July until just a month before we arrived, Israeli troops had been conducting an 'operation' against Hamas in the Gaza strip, in the course of which 469 Israeli soldiers lost their lives. The country was still reeling.

17,200 Garzan homes were totally destroyed and three times that number were seriously damaged. An estimated 2,000 (who keeps count) civilians died in the destruction. 'Bibi' Netanyahu, who had ordered the Operation, declared it a victory.

This time it's on a grander scale: a 'War', and Bibi has vowed to wipe-out Hamas.

Pundits have been moved to speculate on the Hamas strategy, that was obviously premeditated. In addition to taking hostages, it involving sickening brutality against obvious innocents, with many of the worst images made and published by themselves.

It seemed to be deliberate provocation, with a highly predictable outcome.

Martyrdom?

Historically, Hamas have done Bibi no harm. See: 'For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces' in the Israel Times.

Thinking about our visit, I've been moved to wonder how many of today's terrorists were children a decade ago? How many saw their loved ones: buried alive; blown apart; maimed for life; then dismissed by Bibi as: 'collateral damage'?

And how many of the children, now stumbling in the rubble, will, in their turn, become terrorists against the hated oppressor across the barrier?

Is Bibi's present purge a good strategy for assuring future harmony?

I commend my decade old analysis to you: A Brief Modern History and Is there a solution?

Comments:
Since posting the above I've been sent the following article, implicating religious belief, with which I substantially agree, save for its disregarding the Jewish fundamentalists'/extremists' complicity; amplifying the present horrors: The Bright Line Between Good and Evil

Another reader has provided a link to a perspective similar to my own by Australian 'Elder Statesman' John Menadue: Hamas, Gaza and the continuing Zionist project. His Pearls and Irritations site provides a number of articles relating to the current Gaza situation. Worth a read.

The Economist has since reported and unusual spate of short-selling immediately preceding the attacks: Who made millions trading the October 7th attacks?

Money-making by someone in the know? If so, it's beyond evil.

A Little Background

The land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea, known as Palestine, is one of the most fought over in human history. Anthropologists believe that the first humans to leave Africa lived in and around this region and that all non-African humans are related to these common ancestors who lived perhaps 70,000 years ago. At first glance this interest seems odd, because as bits of territory go it's nothing special. These days it's mostly desert and semi-desert. Somewhere back-o-Bourke might look similar, if a bit redder.

Yet since humans have kept written records, Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, Ancient Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, early Muslims, Christian Crusaders, Ottomans (and other later Muslims), British and Zionists, have all fought to control this land. This has sometimes been for strategic reasons alone but often partly for affairs of the heart, because this land is steeped in history and myth.

Fiction, Recollections & News

More on 'herd immunity'

In my paper Love in the time of Coronavirus I suggested that an option for managing Covid-19 was to sequester the vulnerable in isolation and allow the remainder of the population to achieve 'Natural Herd Immunity'.

Both the UK and Sweden announced that this was the strategy they preferred although the UK was soon equivocal.

The other option I suggested was isolation of every case with comprehensive contact tracing and testing; supported by closed borders to all but essential travellers and strict quarantine.

New Zealand; South Korea; Taiwan; Vietnam and, with reservations, Australia opted for this course - along with several other countries, including China - accepting the economic and social costs involved in saving tens of thousands of lives as the lesser of two evils.

Yet this is a gamble as these populations will remain totally vulnerable until a vaccine is available and distributed to sufficient people to confer 'Herd Immunity'.

In the event, every country in which the virus has taken hold has been obliged to implement some degree of social distancing to manage the number of deaths and has thus suffered the corresponding economic costs of jobs lost or suspended; rents unpaid; incomes lost; and as yet unquantified psychological injury.

Opinions and Philosophy

A Carbon Tax for Australia

12 July 2011

It's finally announced, Australia will have a carbon tax of $23 per tonne of CO₂ emitted. This is said to be the highest such tax in the world but it will be limited to 'about 500' of the biggest emitters. The Government says that it can't reveal which these are to the public because commercial privacy laws prevent it from naming them.

Some companies have already 'gone public' and it is clear that prominent among them are the major thermal power generators and perhaps airlines. Some like BlueScope Steel (previously BHP Steel) will be granted a grace period before the tax comes into effect. In this case it is publicly announced that the company has been granted a two year grace period with possible extensions, limited to its core (iron and steelmaking) emissions.

Terms of Use

Terms of Use Copyright