Posts by Argus Tuft

Dodgy is as Dodgy does..

one point that is missed above - the 'product' isn't the issue, even whether it works or not.

The software company in question 'Parakeelia' is owned/run by a political party*, who then pay (taxpayer supplied) funds into it, and receive very large 'donations' back.

Basically just a money laundering operation.

Any money spent on actually improving the product would reduce the slush fund for 'donations'.

*Parakeelia is registered to the same inner-Canberra office building as the Liberals. The company's directors include the Liberal Party's federal director and president. It is registered with authorities as being associated with the party.

but will it have Clippy?

i still the miss the little guy... kind of like the puppy that's always under your feet. Annoying but cute.

ultimate hacker party!

small correction :- ".. creating a risk of information and identity theft in the [inevitable] event that storage of the data is [repeatedly] breached" .

And what happens when an ISP goes to the wall - who gets to hold the data they're storing?

"The department does not use or keep personal information stored on customers' phones for departmental purposes."

no - it just passes it all onto the DSD (or ASD as they want to be called now to sound fluffy-bunnier)

dangerous slope...

I remember when they first introduced random drug tests to go with the random breath tests here.

Media circus arranged by police for the first use of the new booze/drug bus - cameras filming the first guy (a professional truck driver) who tested positive on the preliminary test, his identify splashed across all the TV channels. Reputation ruined. His wife and children in tears. Police and pollies bleating about how despicable this family man must be to drive with drugs in his system.

What a pity that the follow up lab tests showed 100% clear - and the preliminary test was faulty.

Bit late by then though...

not just pussys

they also have COW's (Cell on Wheels) - a mobile cell station for additional mobile capacity at events, or to cover for disasters/damage like this.

what surprised me

was the number of stairs up to the 'red room'. Looking at DotCom i'd have expected an escalator...

what's this about 'old files'?

Isn't the point to show that the data is going to be kept for years, so will all be 'old files' tucked away on dusty servers in compliance with government orders - just a big juicy target...

And of course beyond the hacking aspect, they surely won't be subject to the same sort of 'browsing' that existing govt databases suffer - no nosy official is ever going to look up the browsing habits of their daughter's new boyfriend are they.....

loop counter ?

step 1. Save money on IT by outsourcing (& pocket management bonus)

step 2. Save money on IT by bringing back inhouse (& pocket management bonus)

step 3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 until costs approach zero. (& buy bigger yacht)

ahhh memories...

6146B's happily warming the room- - back when there was still some magic in talking to someone on the other side of the world, and international phone calls upped your mortgage...

then came computers... sigh....

omg

does this mean the russian mafia could spend thousands to extract the spreadsheet of my shopping expenses for the last month...?

my life is sooo boring I'd welcome the attention.

(pps - hydrofluoric acid - just don't get it on you...)

couple of facts

The building regs here are that if there is more than a 1m drop off the edge of a deck etc, you need a barrier 1m high

That's fine for a verandah, but when it's 8 stories in the air (like this was), then a 1m barrier is too low. Some carparks have wire mesh above the concrete car-barriers to prevent this sort of accident (which is what it was) - but not many.

The ridiculous part is the barriers around any sort of pool have to be 1.2m high, but a safety barrier to stop a 100m drop is only 1m...

but what happens

if the ship reaches 88 mph?

the ones to be chopped

should the "C-level" ones who control the budgets for backup systems, and offshoring. Not the staff who have to work with what they've got.

(said by someone who hates our own IT group with a passion...)

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(+ some random letters to get past the bot)

Call in Mr Burns

Wasn't there an episode of The Simpsons where Monty Burns blocked out the sun with a giant umbrella?

Just get one of those hanging from hovering airships during daylight hours.

won't someone think of the children

wonder how many tour groups of school kids have gone through that court?