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Today's Topics:
1. Time for a little Oz Web History (Roger Clarke)
2. Re: RFI: Opening an account with Google without a
phone-camera (David)
3. Re: RFI: Opening an account with Google without a
phone-camera (Roger Clarke)
4. Re: Time for a little Oz Web History (Marghanita da Cruz)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2026 21:53:37 +1100
From: Roger Clarke <[email protected]>
To: link <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Time for a little Oz Web History
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
The Canberra Times Obituaries Sat 14 Feb 26 included Michael Greenhalgh.
Michael was ANU's Chair of Art History 1987-2005:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Greenhalgh
20 books at:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/110058.Michael_Greenhalgh
His *software contributions* are 1/3rd down this page:
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/raid2/no_vandyck2.3gb/data.566mb/users/new-users/gremarth/work/cv.html
His *verrry early World Wide Web content* is outlined here:
https://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OzWH.html#WP
> The evidence is clear that the first web-server in Australia was
David Green's Bioinformatics site, at life.anu.edu.au. The
server-software was installed by Gaby Hoffmann (personal communication,
December 2011), and the site-content was established by David Green in
mid-1992. It was therefore among the first 20 sites in the world.
...
> The links within the ANU were strong. By the end of 1992, David Green
had installed an early version of XMosaic on the workstation of the
Deputy of the ANU Library, Tony Barry (a lapsed physicist), who was
already a Campus Wide Information Systems (CWIS) evangelist. Within a
year, the dominance of gopher within CWIS projects in Australia was
under serious threat, and quickly subsided after the release of Mosaic
for Windows and Macs in September 1993 (Barry 1995).
>
> ... [David] Green says that "No other sites registered themselves
until well into 1993. If I recall correctly Jim Croft set up his site at
the [National] Botanic Gardens early in 1993 after we discussed the
possibilities and *Mike Greenhalgh set up his Art History site around*
*mid 1993* after we gave him a demo" (personal communication, Green
2001). Both of these appear to have been within the first 150 sites in
the world.
The part he demo'd to me (and many others) back in late 1993 was a
complete display of Borubudor, implemented in VRML, original still up:
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bycountry/indonesia/borobudur/Moksha/
(Let's run a competition for *oldest extant Australian pages*. My paper
records that "My own web-site was established in August 1994, but
publicised only in February 1995". I haven't yet nailed the August 1994
pages. But a dozen people can surely beat that late date anyway).
Michael's server is still running tonight, 33 years later:
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/
(A benefit of being an emeritus, I imagine. I fear that it will
disappear when someone in ANU IT does a clear-out).
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/4.04 [en] (X11; I; Linux
2.0.17 i586) [Netscape]">
</HEAD>
<TITLE>Borobudur VRML Model Page</TITLE>
<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff" background="IMG/bgimage.jpg">
...
___________________
Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected]
T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Visiting Professorial Fellow UNSW Law & Justice
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:07:06 +1100
From: David <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] RFI: Opening an account with Google without a
phone-camera
Message-ID: <2049455.DIVbhacDa7@ulysses>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
On Sunday, 15 February 2026 09:32:00 AEDT Roger Clarke wrote:
> *Any thoughts on how a non-compliant desktop/laptop user can play* would be
> very much appreciated.
The problem with QR codes lies in their anonymity, and there's just no way
around that as far as I can see.
Perhaps users generally are becoming much better at mentally parsing
conventional URLs and spotting frauds, hence a move to "quishing". The NSW
Police have a neat summary of many ways they can be exploited at
https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/safety_and_prevention/crime_prevention/resources_-_fact_sheets_and_videos/beware_of_qr_codes
This "non-compliant desktop/laptop user" (:-) insists on certain constraints in
certain circumstances, otherwise I simply part company with the organisation
concerned. These include using a token for 2-level authentication where
appropriate (not a mobile 'phone SMS message), and no QR codes. That may
eventually result in my being largely off the mainstream data grid, but as one
expert recently remarked somewhat ruefully, she thought the off-gridders might
have the last laugh!
_DavidL_
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2026 08:06:03 +1100
From: Roger Clarke <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] RFI: Opening an account with Google without a
phone-camera
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> On Sunday, 15 February 2026 09:32:00 AEDT Roger Clarke wrote:
>> *Any thoughts on how a non-compliant desktop/laptop user can play* would be
>> very much appreciated.
On 16/2/2026 00:07, David <[email protected]> wrote:
> The problem with QR codes lies in their anonymity, and there's just no way
> around that as far as I can see.
>
> Perhaps users generally are becoming much better at mentally parsing
> conventional URLs and spotting frauds, hence a move to "quishing". The NSW
> Police have a neat summary of many ways they can be exploited at
> https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/safety_and_prevention/crime_prevention/resources_-_fact_sheets_and_videos/beware_of_qr_codes
>
> This "non-compliant desktop/laptop user" (:-) insists on certain constraints
> in certain circumstances, otherwise I simply part company with the
> organisation concerned. These include using a token for 2-level
> authentication where appropriate
There's been a marked falling-away of tokens, as in separate, physical
artefacts containing a time-based OTP generator.
I had 'considerable discussions' with Rabo before they finally worked
out there were more of us than they thought, and belatedly signed up
with a new supplier. (Too embarrassed to go back to the previous one?).
Mind you, I *still* can't find where I put the Yubi key that UNSW issued
me (in return for a 600km return trip), so I'm locked out of all things
there. Fortunately I seldom need it, and have managed to find
non-online workarounds the couple of times it mattered.
Another reversal recently was Microsoft. It appears that they switched
off SMS-based OTPs, zone by zone around the world. They appear to have
given no notice to their cients. Both ANU and ACS tried to ignore the
incident reports. ANU eventually provided some modestly helpful
guidance on how to configure TOTP software. After multiple experiments,
I got Authenticator.cc working on Brave/Chromium.
ACS, technically as inept as ever, didn't appear to know Microsoft had
turned SMS OTP off. They were also less than helpful re TOTP, even
seeming to be unaware that it was installed and functional at their end
(or possibly unaware of TOTP, it's hard to tell).
After replicating what I'd done to get back into ANU, my laptop connects
with ACS okay. My desktop did briefly, but ACS then disappeared from
the list, and my couple of attempts to revive it failed. I may need to
uninstall, reinstall, and rediscover how to reconnect both ANU and ACS.
But wait, there's another way. Microsoft once again offers a
computer-generated voice-call to a 'landline'/VoIP number. And the 30-
or 90-day validity-period option, which they'd earlier removed,
reappeared. So my desktop has been connecting with ACS fine. (Pity
about the manifold idiocies of the SharePoint, Outlook and Teams
software I have to then wrestle into submission).
I did many consultancies in authentication and to a lesser extent
authorisation from almost three decades ago until maybe 5 years ago, and
can't believe what an utter cockup the IT industry makes of it.
> ... (not a mobile 'phone SMS message), and no QR codes. That may eventually
> result in my being largely off the mainstream data grid, but as one expert
> recently remarked somewhat ruefully, she thought the off-gridders might have
> the last laugh!
___________________
Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected]
T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Visiting Professorial Fellow UNSW Law & Justice
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:18:25 +1100
From: Marghanita da Cruz <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] Time for a little Oz Web History
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Cleaning up, I found catalog for 2012:
> /Lewin: Wild Art/ brings together for the first time over 150 of John
> Lewin's beautiful and distinctly Australian works, selected from the
> Mitchell Library's renowned collection as well as other major national
> and international collections.
https://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/events/exhibitions/2012/lewin/index.html
I was going to credit NLA, but catalog is indeed from SLNSW!
Marghanita
On 2/15/26 21:53, Roger Clarke wrote:
>
> The Canberra Times Obituaries Sat 14 Feb 26 included Michael Greenhalgh.
>
> Michael was ANU's Chair of Art History 1987-2005:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Greenhalgh
> 20 books at:
> https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/110058.Michael_Greenhalgh
>
> His *software contributions* are 1/3rd down this page:
> http://rubens.anu.edu.au/raid2/no_vandyck2.3gb/data.566mb/users/new-users/gremarth/work/cv.html
>
>
>
> His *verrry early World Wide Web content* is outlined here:
> https://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OzWH.html#WP
>
> > The evidence is clear that the first web-server in Australia was
> David Green's Bioinformatics site, at life.anu.edu.au. The
> server-software was installed by Gaby Hoffmann (personal
> communication, December 2011), and the site-content was established by
> David Green in mid-1992. It was therefore among the first 20 sites in
> the world.
> ...
> > The links within the ANU were strong. By the end of 1992, David
> Green had installed an early version of XMosaic on the workstation of
> the Deputy of the ANU Library, Tony Barry (a lapsed physicist), who
> was already a Campus Wide Information Systems (CWIS) evangelist.
> Within a year, the dominance of gopher within CWIS projects in
> Australia was under serious threat, and quickly subsided after the
> release of Mosaic for Windows and Macs in September 1993 (Barry 1995).
> >
> > ... [David] Green says that "No other sites registered themselves
> until well into 1993. If I recall correctly Jim Croft set up his site
> at the [National] Botanic Gardens early in 1993 after we discussed the
> possibilities and *Mike Greenhalgh set up his Art History site around*
> *mid 1993* after we gave him a demo" (personal communication, Green
> 2001). Both of these appear to have been within the first 150 sites in
> the world.
>
>
> The part he demo'd to me (and many others) back in late 1993 was a
> complete display of Borubudor, implemented in VRML, original still up:
> http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bycountry/indonesia/borobudur/Moksha/
>
> (Let's run a competition for *oldest extant Australian pages*.? My
> paper records that "My own web-site was established in August 1994,
> but publicised only in February 1995".? I haven't yet nailed the
> August 1994 pages.? But a dozen people can surely beat that late date
> anyway).
>
>
> Michael's server is still running tonight, 33 years later:
> http://rubens.anu.edu.au/
>
> (A benefit of being an emeritus, I imagine.? I fear that it will
> disappear when someone in ANU IT does a clear-out).
>
>
> <HTML>
> <HEAD>
> ?? <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;
> charset=iso-8859-1">
> ?? <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/4.04 [en] (X11; I; Linux
> 2.0.17 i586) [Netscape]">
> </HEAD>
>
> <TITLE>Borobudur VRML Model Page</TITLE>
> <BODY bgcolor="#ffffff" background="IMG/bgimage.jpg">
> ...
>
> ___________________
>
> Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected]
> T: +61 2 6288 6916? http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com
>
> Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd???? 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
> Visiting Professorial Fellow???????????????????????? UNSW Law & Justice
> Visiting Professor in Computer Science?? Australian National University
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
--
Marghanita da Cruz
Telephone: 0414-869202
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://ramin.com.au
------------------------------
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