[LINK] The Past, Current and Future State of AI

[Roger Clarke]

Hi Roger, I’m Ceba the CommBank Assistant

Ceba said
I'm a bot. Ask me a question, I'm here to help you.
If you need human help I'll point you in the right direction.

You said
You said you would refund a disputed transaction. After 3 weeks, you
haven't refunded it. Where do I complai

Ceba said
I don't quite understand your question. Select an option below or try
asking me in another way.

You said
You're a total waste of time.

Ceba said
Looks like my answer wasn't helpful.
Thankfully I learn more every day.
You may find what you’re looking for on our help and support page on our
website.
Help and support
Link
Opens in a new window

You said
Please put me through to a human being.

Ceba said
If you tell me what you’re looking for in a few words I might be able to
point you there faster than a human.

You said
No thanks. Do what I asked.

Ceba said
I didn't quite catch that.
Could you try telling me what you’re looking for another way?

You said
What would be the point of that. You're a piece of artificial stupidity
designed to frustrate customers and s[ave s ...]

Ceba said
I don't quite understand your question. Select an option below or try
asking me in another way.

You said
hareholders money. And this stupid interface truncates my sentences.

Ceba said
I’m learning more each day.
You may find what you’re looking for on our help and support page on our
website.
Help and support
Link
Opens in a new window
You can also help by giving feedback.
Give feedback
Link
Opens in a new window

Thanks for completing the survey. Let me know if there's anything else I
can help you with.

You said
What an utter and complete waste of time!!

Ceba said
I'm always learning more about banking.
You can help me along by giving feedback.
Give feedback
Link
Opens in a new window

You said
To what? An artificially stupid bot??

Ceba said
I'm always learning more about banking.
You can help me along by giving feedback.
Give feedback
Link
Opens in a new window


[ Remarkably, Joe Weizenbaum's Eliza was less frustrating than that, and
delivered exactly the same informational value (viz. none) - although in
Eliza's case it was designed specifically to do that.  Joe did that work
as I was about to leave High School, in 1964-66:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect

Human: Well, my boyfriend made me come here.
ELIZA: Your boyfriend made you come here?
Human: He says I'm depressed much of the time.
ELIZA: I am sorry to hear you are depressed.
Human: It's true. I'm unhappy.
ELIZA: Do you think coming here will help you not to be unhappy?[8]


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] Australian Government COVID-19 Vaccination Advertisement a Deep Fake?

[Roger Clarke]

On 27/1/21 7:33 pm, Tom Worthington wrote:
> Has the Federal Government used deepfake software to put words into the
> mouths of the three medical experts in the COVID-19 vaccination
> advertisement? The movements of the mouths of the people do not appear
> to match the bodies, as if they have been digitally animated.
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-27/government-rolling-out-covid-19-vaccine-advertising/13093168
> 
> I am not suggesting some sort of QAnon conspiracy, just that perhaps to
> get the advertisement made quickly with a group of non-actors, it was
> necessary to use extensive digital post-production.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake

Nah, just cheaper to film the good-looking actors once and then use
inexpensive lip-synch software to splice in any message you like.

Reminds me of the (late 60s? early 70s?) toothpaste ad:

Good-looking bloke's back-of-head, in front of sink, scrubbing teeth.

'As a professional dentist, he can't say it on television'.



'But 9 out of 10 dentists recommend Colgate'.


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] LeMonde > Murdoch + Once-Was-Fairfax?

[Roger Clarke]

On 24/1/21 5:47 pm, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
> Trying to relive the old days, on Saturday morning I treated myself to
> two printed newspapers to read over breakfast. Is this still a market?

Facile answer:  yes, because you bought a newspaper.

I can't find a lot of freebee data, but here are two partial indicators
of the scale of change:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Australia_by_circulation
SMH print circulation peaked in 2007 at 212K, in 2019 down to 78K
Age similar
AFR  88K, 39K
CT  2005 36K, 13K
(Tits and bums media have gone down by a somewhat lower percentage)

https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/05/25/print-newspapers-power-weakens-as-circulation-slumps-coronaviurs/
> Measured virus to virus, Australian daily metropolitan newspaper print
circulation has fallen by over two-thirds — from about 2.4 million in
2003 at the time of the first SARS outbreak to less than 800,000 today.

So  ...  Yes, it's a smaller market.

And ...  Yes, it's a market.

What I can't believe is the disappearance of the 'customise your own'
morning edition, 'get printable PDF' in your e-mailbox at 06:00.

___


> The itnews article mentions Google News Showcase
> 
>> Google News Initiative
>> Our $1 billion investment in partnerships with news publishers
> ...
>> We’ve signed partnerships for News Showcase with nearly 200 leading
>> publications across Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the U.K. and
>> Australia
>>
> https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/google-news-showcase/
> 
> 
> Marghanita
> 
> On 22/1/21 9:59 pm, Roger Clarke wrote:
>> [ There was an interesting juxtaposition of stories today.
>>
>> [ The Gorilla Strategy: Provided that we retain the capacity to use our
>> market power to beat content-providers to a pulp and agree to pay
>> pitiful amounts to publishers, that's alright. Pass a platform-specific
>> law??? . ]
>>
>> [ Le Monde, assuming it sustains the public's belief that it delivers
>> quality news, commentary and style, may get by - at least as long as
>> Google's much-vaunted translation software produces low-grade output. ]
>>
>> ___
>>
>> Google seals content payment deal with French news publishers
>> Mathieu Rosemain
>> itNews
>> Jan 22 2021
>> https://www.itnews.com.au/news/google-seals-content-payment-deal-with-french-news-publishers-560049
>>
>>
>> Google and a French publishers' lobby said on Thursday they had agreed a
>> copyright framework under which the US tech giant will pay news
>> publishers for content online, in a first for Europe.
>> ...
>> Google has so far only signed licensing agreements with a few
>> publications in France, including national daily newspapers Le Monde and
>> Le Figaro. These take into account the framework agreed with APIG, a
>> Google spokesman said.
>> [ Comment deleted about blowing the house down. ]
>> ...
>> The deal follows months of bargaining between Google, French publishers
>> and news agencies over how to apply revamped EU copyright rules, which
>> allow publishers to demand a fee from online platforms showing extracts
>> of their news.
>>
>> The world's biggest search engine initially fought against the idea of
>> paying publishers for content, saying their websites benefited from
>> greater traffic brought by Google.
>>
>> ___
>>
>> Google threatens to withdraw search engine in Australia
>> Justin Hendry
>> itNews
>> Jan 22 2021
>> https://www.itnews.com.au/news/google-threatens-to-withdraw-search-engine-in-australia-560068
>>
>>
>> Google has threatened to stop making its search engine available in
>> Australia if the federal government’s landmark mandatory media
>> bargaining law passes in its current form.
>> ...
>>
>> ___
>>
>> Roger Clarke mailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
>> 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 Professor in the Faculty of Law University of N.S.W.
>> Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
>> ___
>> Link mailing list
>> Link@mailman.anu.edu.au
>> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
> 


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] LeMonde > Murdoch + Once-Was-Fairfax?

[Roger Clarke]

[ There was an interesting juxtaposition of stories today.

[ The Gorilla Strategy:  Provided that we retain the capacity to use our
market power to beat content-providers to a pulp and agree to pay
pitiful amounts to publishers, that's alright.  Pass a platform-specific
law???  . ]

[ Le Monde, assuming it sustains the public's belief that it delivers
quality news, commentary and style, may get by - at least as long as
Google's much-vaunted translation software produces low-grade output. ]

___

Google seals content payment deal with French news publishers
Mathieu Rosemain
itNews
Jan 22 2021
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/google-seals-content-payment-deal-with-french-news-publishers-560049

Google and a French publishers' lobby said on Thursday they had agreed a
copyright framework under which the US tech giant will pay news
publishers for content online, in a first for Europe.
...
Google has so far only signed licensing agreements with a few
publications in France, including national daily newspapers Le Monde and
Le Figaro. These take into account the framework agreed with APIG, a
Google spokesman said.
[ Comment deleted about blowing the house down. ]
...
The deal follows months of bargaining between Google, French publishers
and news agencies over how to apply revamped EU copyright rules, which
allow publishers to demand a fee from online platforms showing extracts
of their news.

The world's biggest search engine initially fought against the idea of
paying publishers for content, saying their websites benefited from
greater traffic brought by Google.

___

Google threatens to withdraw search engine in Australia
Justin Hendry
itNews
Jan 22 2021
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/google-threatens-to-withdraw-search-engine-in-australia-560068

Google has threatened to stop making its search engine available in
Australia if the federal government’s landmark mandatory media
bargaining law passes in its current form.
...

___

Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] The ACT Govt's COVID-19 Exclusion Zone

[Roger Clarke]

On 23/12/20 11:40 am, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
> On 23/12/20 9:23 am, jw...@internode.on.net wrote:
>>     We had a similar confusion in Melbourne when they tried the LGA
>> restriction approach. No one knew where the boundaries were, even
>> people who lived there. They know their own postcode, but that's it.
> 
> 
> I live in Surrey Hills, VIC and to say it's confusing here would be an
> understatement. Our postcode 3127 covers two suburbs (Surrey Hills and
> Mont Albert). Our suburb is covered by two federal electorates, (Kooyong
> and Chisholm), two state electorates (Burwood and Box Hill) and two
> councils (Boroondara and Whitehorse).
> 
> All four boundaries (postcode/council/state/federal) are different.

But federalism is a great thing  (:-)}

Seriously, it would have needed some thinking by ACT (and other govts)
if they were actually interested in clear communications to the public.

My guess is that a list of rim-suburbs, inside and outside, would have
been the most useful for the public (but a bit lengthy).

And postcodes would have had the second-highest comprehension-level, but
not particularly good.

LGA boundaries are known only to people who work for LGAs and those who
live adjacent to them.


But   ...  irrespective of the choice, a decent proportion of the
population could have navigated their way around one or more maps.

Using https://mangomap.com/robertyoung/maps/93143/NSW-LGAs#
it requires only 4 maps to include the rim-location-names.


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] The ACT Govt's COVID-19 Exclusion Zone

[Roger Clarke]

On Sunday 20 Dec, at 17:00 for 24:00, the ACT government slapped a
14-day quarantine requirement on people coming to the ACT who've been in
"the Greater Sydney, Central Coast or Wollongong areas".

To define what that means, a table lists 35 LGAs in alpha order:
https://www.covid19.act.gov.au/community/travel/nsw

Put your hands up if you know:
-   the 29 Sydney Basin LGAs;
-   the 6 extra LGAs in "Greater Sydney, Central Coast or
Wollongong areas";  and
-   the location-names on either side of the boundaries.

I used to know the 42 Sydney Basin LGAs, but since a partly-abortive and
badly-botched amalgamation campaign, some are foreign to me.
(Cumberland was a ridiculous name to use, because for a century 'the
County of Cumberland' encompassed the whole of the Sydney basin).

I also got part of the boundary wrong on this map first time around.
I overlooked Hawkesbury LGA (hence missing Richmond and Windsor):
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/GSydAndNearbyLGAs.jpg

No map was provided, and that remained the case as late as Wed morning
23 Dec.  This email and attachment took 45 mins, but apparently the ACT
Govt doesn't have the resources, or doesn't think it matters.

(And the ACT Govt provides no email-addresses, and their web-forms make
no allowance for attachments.  Remember when the Web was going to
greatly improve relations between people and governments?  It didn't).


Northern Beaches LGA
Bayside LGA (excluding transit through Sydney airport)
Blacktown City LGA
Burwood LGA
Canada Bay City LGA
Canterbury-Bankstown LGA
Cumberland LGA
Fairfield City LGA
Georges River LGA
Hornsby Shire LGA
Hunter’s Hill Municipality LGA
Inner West LGA
Ku-ring-gai LGA
Liverpool City LGA
Lane Cove Municipality LGA
Mosman Municipality LGA
North Sydney LGA
Parramatta City LGA
Penrith City LGA
Randwick City LGA
Ryde City LGA
Strathfield Municipality LGA
Sutherland Shire LGA
Sydney City LGA
The Hills Shire LGA
Waverley LGA
Willoughby City LGA
Wollondilly Shire LGA
Woollahra City LGA


Using https://mangomap.com/robertyoung/maps/93143/NSW-LGAs#

Central Coast LGA
   includes Doyalson, Bushell's Ridge, Bucketty
   not Moonee, Wyee, Cessnock
Hawkesbury City LGA
   includes Mellong, Bilpin
   not Putty
Blue Mountains City LGA
   includes Mt Tomah, Mt Victoria
   not Lithgow
Camden LGA
   includes Wallacia, Greendale, Cobbity, Grasmere, Camden South
   not Warragamba, Werombi, The Oaks, Camden Park
Campbelltown City LGA
   includes Menangle Park,
   not Menangle, Appin
Wollongong LGA
   includes Darkes Forest, Dapto, Haywards Bay
   not Macquarie Pass, Albion Park, Shellharbour


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] Payment Surcharge Price-Gouge Stopped

[Roger Clarke]

SMH has been charging 0.9% for payments by both credit-card (which is an
appallingly insecure design and costs a lot to operate) and debit-card
(which is effective and inexpensive - although there are endeavours to
undermine its security through convenient, but unauthorised, payment).

SMH also precludes payment by bank transfer or any other means.

The RBA guidelines permit a materially excessive fee of 0.5%, and the
terms are so vague that it doesn't matter whether the payment uses the
(expensive) credit-card-oriented Visa system or cost-effective
alternatives, and is doesn't matter what the actual cost-profile of the
organisation is - they can still get away with 0.5%.

In early Sep, I submitted a complaint to ACCC, about the over-the-top
price-gouge in relation to card payments, esp. payment by debit-card.


I was given the bum's rush by ACCC not once, but twice;  so I wrote
directly to the Commissioner, and included the draft letter to the
relevant person at the RBA.  (Only a small amount of knowledge is needed
about payment systems and the relevant softish Code and associated moral
suasion;  then it's pretty easy to use keywords to track contacts down).

That resulted in another ACCC complaints person being forced to say
they'd handle it.

That all happened in early-to-mid September, and I'd heard nothing more.


Then, on Monday, SMH sent me (as a subscriber, not as a complainee) the
email below, saying payment surcharge fees are, as of 15 Dec, 0.5% for
credit-cards and zero for debit-cards.


I tried to check with the ACCC about the still-outstanding complaint.
(I actually wanted them to have the opportunity to say that they had
contacted SMH about the matter).

The answer was one of the most useless pieces of time-wasting
bureaucratese that I've ever seen.  Sub-text:  'Stop bothering me.
My 6-month timeframe to address complaints isn't over yet'.

However, it would appear that a sustained effort to force the regulator
to do its job has resulted in a communication from the regulator to the
regulatee, and, on mature reconsideration, the price-gouge being stopped
voluntarily by the regulatee.


The public *can* win.  The public just needs to be modestly
well-informed, persistent, and, when necessary, just a little vicious.



Subject: Important information about your subscription
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2020 21:31:17 -0600
From: Herald Subscriptions 
Reply-To: Fairfax Media

To: roger.cla...@xamax.com.au

Transactional
We're lowering our payment surcharge fees.

Dear Roger,
We're writing to inform you that from today, Tuesday December 15, we
will be reducing our card payment surcharge.
Dependent on the card type, the below surcharge will now apply to your
subscription payments:

  * Debit card: no fee will be charged.
  * Credit card: 0.5%.

If you would like to change your card details, simply log into My
Account
<http://click.email.fairfaxmedia.com.au/?qs=6244359c3c6464f0614f5246fbea8ba12e99bcb606c5a98892fe43802bc0687632b0f2b6fe915214d64228a7b03975c7d1228eddb77f94d3>.

You can update your payment method at any time.
If you have any further questions, please contact our Customer Service team.
Kind regards,

The Sydney Morning Herald Subscriber Services Team



Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] The Chinese Digital Renminbi (E-CNY)

[Roger Clarke]

On 14/12/20 11:01 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:
> “How will the digital RMB change the financial ecology?”
> 2020-10-21 17:09 Author: Sun Yang  Source: Suning Financial Research
Institute (Google Translation) (c)
> http://www.cb.com.cn/index/show/zk/cv/cv13450241184

...
> all transaction information is only stored in the digital currency system of 
> the central bank, which fully guarantees the anonymity of users and helps 
> ensure the security of personal information This is crucial today when data 
> privacy is highly important ...
> ... personal level data will be collected by the central bank ...
Digital currency will enable the central bank to better implement the
central government's targeted monetary policy, and to achieve accurate
fund placement and flow monitoring ...

It's a neat Orwellianism to treat 'privacy' as merely security against
third parties.  The State, being your Big Brother, is by definition
incapable of ever doing anything against your interests.


Mind you, this bit negates the naive notion of security against third
parties, and portrays the 'open banking data' scene, like that being
implemented in Australia as the Corporate Data Right (CDR):

> Commercial banks have entered the scene directly, and can obtain
richer and more detailed data information under the scene, which can be
used to portray users' consumption habits or generate credit evaluations
for users ...


Chilling stuff.  Stalin's jealous.


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] itN: Vic Contact-Tracing False Start Mar-Jul 2020

[Roger Clarke]

It's really nice to see a good, short case study emerge from a Parltry
Committee Inquiry and a journo's analysis of the Report:

Vic govt axed IBM i2 from freshly digitised contact tracing system
Did not meet predictive analytics needs.
Ry Crozier
itNews
Dec 14 2020
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/vic-govt-axed-ibm-i2-from-freshly-digitised-contact-tracing-system-558957


It's easy to be critical of the Vic DHHS people for taking from March to
July to get their ideas sufficiently clear in their minds, and do enough
'probity' to make it unlikely that the second go would be a stuff-up.

But it would have been hard in March, sitting there, trying to work out
what was going on, and what kinds of decisions might be needed, and what
kinds of data might need to be interrogated in what kinds of ways, and
what kinds of automated triggers might help.  20-20 hindsight's easier.

Okay, it's amazing that $4.2m could have been committed to up-front,
rather than a short series of contracts being used, to experiment, do a
quick proof-of-concept application, and only then sign a supply
contract.  But (a) DHHS and Cabinet needed to be doing something, and be
seen to be doing so, and (b) they're remarkably profligate at any time.

Blind reliance on the 'predictive modelling' and 'AI' mantras might have
been the biggest villain in the piece.


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] RFI: groups.io

[Roger Clarke]

This is a follow-on to my earlier enquiry about comms tools, e.g. for:
-   prof'l associations like ACS
-   NGOs like APF
-   archives like apf-media-archive
-   clubs like my wife's large, many-committee'd Dog Agility Club
-   communities like link

This presents as a less-basic, email-based (or email-compatible?) group
communication tool:  https://groups.io

Can anyone offer comments based on experience of it as an alternative to
mailman and its ilk?

Thanks!  ...  Roger

___


https://groups.io/static/features
-   topics and hashtags
-   'mute' (=unsubscribe?) based on toipic or tag
-   management tools

(At least 1 tag is mandatory;  but maybe that's like Subject:)

> Groups.io replaces a bunch of apps, including:
> Mailman / Discourse / Aurea (previously Lyris)

> Premium and Enterprise (not Freemium) replaces:
> Slack
> Dropbox for teams
> G Suite: Docs, Calendar
> Doodle
> SignUpGenius
> SurveyMonkey / Typeform / Google Forms

[ Does 'G Suite Docs' = file-storage, or online word-processing? ]


An over-glowing backgrounder:
https://lifehacker.com/drop-google-and-facebook-groups-and-use-this-instead-1823994067

_

https://groups.io/static/pricing
https://groups.io/static/compare

FreemiumBasic capabilies and 1GB of storage
Messages themselves are not counted towards the storage
limits, only any attachments.
You can configure your group to either bounce messages when you've
reached your storage limit, or to automatically delete old attachments
to keep you under the storage limit. Photos and files are never
automatically deleted.

Premium
USD 20 pmo  +20GB, unlimited subgroups, collaboration suite, donations
(AUD 325 p.a.)

Worrisome:  Direct add members
You have complete control over your member list.
[So what facility is there in the Freemium??]
And this:   Premium [only?] groups support this integration:
Email - Create a receive-only email address
that posts to your group.  [Means what?]

Enterprise
USD 200 pmo  More space and features, own domain-name/branding/home-page


"If you are legally recognized as a non-profit organization, we offer a
50% discount on our Enterprise plan" [but *not* on the Premium plan]

_

Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] Open access science

[Roger Clarke]

OA can continue to freely publish their research 
> behind a paywall, the spokesperson notes: these papers are available to 
> subscribers, and authors can make their accepted manuscripts available online 
> after a delay; for Nature, that is six months after publication.
> 
> The group of funders backing Plan S, called cOAlition S, says publishers 
> should provide data to break down how publishing fees relate to the services 
> provided. “Once this information is available, the research community will be 
> better placed to decide whether the fees levied by publishers are fair and 
> reasonable,” says coalition coordinator Robert Kiley, who is also head of 
> open research at the biomedical-research funder Wellcome in London.
> 
> ‘Guided’ OA pilot
> 
> Springer Nature is also introducing a scheme that would roughly halve OA fees 
> for some journals, which it is trialling with Nature Physics, Nature Genetics 
> and Nature Methods. Under the scheme, called guided OA, authors submit 
> manuscripts and — if they pass a suitability screen — pay a non-refundable 
> fee of €2,190 to cover an editorial assessment and the peer-review process. 
> In return, they get a review document, which the publisher says includes more 
> detailed editorial evaluation than typical review reports, and they are told 
> which Springer Nature title their work is recommended for.
> 
> Authors who submit to Nature Physics, for instance, might be accepted at that 
> journal or told what revisions they need to make to reach it; they might be 
> guided to the less-selective journals Nature Communications or Communications 
> Physics; or their manuscript might be rejected. They can then walk away with 
> their report or, if accepted, can pay a top-up fee of €2,600 to publish in 
> Nature Physics or Nature Communications. The total fee of €4,790 is half the 
> standard OA fee for Nature Physics, and a slight increase on the price of 
> publishing in Nature Communications, the only Nature-branded title that is 
> already fully OA. The top-up fee is €800 for Communications Physics, again 
> making the total cost a slight increase on the current price in that OA 
> journal; the increase is to cover the extra editorial work involved in the 
> guided OA route compared with direct submissions to these journals, the 
> publisher says.
> 
> This mechanism “shares the cost more evenly over multiple authors” and will 
> save time by avoiding multiple rounds of review in different journals, says 
> James Butcher, vice-president of journals at the Nature Portfolio and BMC, an 
> imprint owned by Springer Nature. Hinchliffe sees it as “a creative 
> experiment for authors and publisher to manage financial risk”.
> 
> The scheme could be tempting to researchers hoping to publish in a 
> Nature-branded journal, says Alperin. Compared with the full-price OA option, 
> it “offers a lower initial barrier of entry with a higher threshold of 
> success”, he says. But peer reviewers who have appraised the manuscript under 
> this scheme might feel that Nature titles are “essentially selling their free 
> labour to authors” if a reviewed paper is not eventually published, says 
> Curry.
> 
> Test run
> 
> Kiley will watch the idea with interest. “Ultimately, we believe that 
> publishing costs need to be split so that they reflect the different services 
> publishers provide, and this experiment by [Springer Nature] will help inform 
> this approach,” he says.
> 
> Journals in the Nature family have committed to increasing their OA content 
> over time, so most Plan S funders have said they will pay their OA fees, 
> despite a general reluctance to support hybrid journals (which keep some 
> papers behind a paywall and make others open). But some, including the 
> European Commission and the Dutch Research Council (NWO), have not yet agreed 
> to this.
> 
> Other publishers of highly-selective journals haven’t yet announced policies 
> in response to Plan S. Cell Press (owned by Elsevier in Amsterdam) says that 
> the journal Cell is finalizing its approach: it currently offers OA 
> publishing at $5,900, but only to authors whose funding agency “has an 
> appropriate agreement” with the journal. That policy doesn’t suit Plan S, 
> Kiley says.
> 
> The publisher of Science-branded journals, the American Association for the 
> Advancement of Science in Washington DC, says it is still thinking about how 
> to adjust to Plan S. Since 2013, it has allowed authors to post an accepted 
> version of their article in an online repository when their paper is 
> published. But that doesn’t satisfy Plan S funders, who ask that manuscripts 
> be shared under an open licence that allows anyone else to redistribute or 
> adapt the work.

Re: [LINK] RFI: Spam-registration of IP-addresses

[Roger Clarke]

> On Tue, 24 Nov 2020 11:57:35 +1100 Roger Clarke  
> wrote:
>> I've looked into DMARC and inserted:
>> TXT  v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=roger.cla...@xamax.com.au

On 24/11/20 4:10 pm, Stephen Rothwell wrote:
> You might try "mailto:; in there (after the "rua=") as it is meant to
> be a URL (URI?) ...
> Also, I put an explicit "pct=100;" in my record and get quite a few
> responses (positive and negative).

I thought at first it had defaulted to precisely that format.

But when I looked a second time, it was back to what I had in line 3 of
this email.

Maybe cpanel has some strange defaulting that confused me.

It now says:
v=DMARC1; p=none; pct=100; rua=mailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au

I'll await percolation, and do some tests.

Thanks!  ...  Roger

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T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

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Re: [LINK] RFI: Spam-registration of IP-addresses

[Roger Clarke]

Many thanks to the several people who pointed me to the SPF entry!

Chris Maltby's explanation (all-but) nailed the problem.

Changing the SPF entry to ip4:103.27.32.0/24 fixed Yahoo.
But my Rocketmail mate still gets my messages thrown into Junk.

VentraIP responded, and recommended a different SPF entry:
v=spf1 +a +mx +include:spf.hostingplatform.net.au ~all

That also appears to work for Yahoo, but also not for Rocketmail.

I've looked into DMARC and inserted:
TXT  v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=roger.cla...@xamax.com.au

That ought to generate a rejection-message that might help with
debugging;  but it hasn't so far.

I was vaguely been aware of SPF and DMARC but had never looked at them.

Only 0.1% of my correspondents use Rocketmail, and he's said he also
found a telco invoice in his Junk-folder this morning ...

Thanks Chris and others!

___

WAS:
TXT  v=spf1 ip4:103.27.32.5 +include:retailspf.smtp.com ?all

CHANGED TO:
TXT  v=spf1 ip4:103.27.32.0/24 +mx +a ~all

The old one says to trust email that comes from a specific IP-address.
The new one says to trust it if it comes from a range of IP-addresses.

The SMTP-server operator has big volumes, and uses multiple addresses.

CHANGED AGAIN TO:
v=spf1 +a +mx +include:spf.hostingplatform.net.au ~all

Both new entries *ought* to leave no clues for Rocketmail's Artificial
Stupidity to trip over - although the first works only if ISP's
wholesale provider stays within that range of IP-addresses.  Networked
business topologies are *so* much more efficient, right??

___

On 22/11/20 1:12 pm, Chris Maltby wrote:
> I'm not sure that your xamax.com.au SPF details are good.
> 
> xamax.com.au: "v=spf1 *ip4:103.27.32.5* +include:retailspf.smtp.com ?all"
> retailspf.smtp.com: "v=spf1 ip4:192.40.160.0/19 ip4:74.91.80.0/20 ~all"
> 
> but the sending address at syd.hostingplatform.net.au is 103.27.32.232.
> You could try changing the ip4:103.27.32.5 to ip4:103.27.32.0/24.
> 
> You might also want to set up a DMARC record so that you can receive
> reports of messages that fail SPF/DKIM/ARC checks.
> 
> Yahoo is one of the fussiest, but also seems to permit the most real spam...
> 
> Chris
> 
> On 21/11/2020 7:14 am, Roger Clarke wrote:
>> If anyone can point me to relevant sources to help me understand and
>> address the following problem, I'd be very appreciative!

___

Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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

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Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] Twitter Fleets

[Roger Clarke]

[ I'd drafted the reaction below, but I prefer Prof. Klerphell's.]


> Fleets: a new way to join the conversation
>
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/introducing-fleets-new-way-to-join-the-conversation.html
> .,.. Tweeting is uncomfortable because it feels so public, so permanent, and 
> like there's so much pressure to rack up Retweets and Likes. That’s why, 
> unfortunately, there are so many  Tweets left in drafts!

Alternatively, people might be discovering that there's a huge amount of
vacuous dross in Tweets, and that adding more of it could be a liability
and even an embarrassment.


> Fleets are for sharing momentary thoughts – they help start conversations and 
> only stick around for 24 hours.

Oh good:  even more, even more vacuous commentary ...

The sceptic in me also wonders what "stick around" means.
Maybe 'remain available to all but our strategic partners'?


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

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[LINK] RFI: Spam-registration of IP-addresses

[Roger Clarke]

If anyone can point me to relevant sources to help me understand and
address the following problem, I'd be very appreciative!

__

It appears that all messages that I've sent to Yahoo addressees, incl.
Rocketmail, at least since early September, have gone into the
recipients' spam-buckets.

In the few copies of messages I've received from relevant
correspondents, there is nothing in the Subject: to indicate Spam.

In the only set of headers I've been able to acquire, I can see nothing
that represents a criterion to cause the email-client to fling it into
the spam-bucket.

The SMTP-server I use has *not* been registered on any spam-servers at
any relevant time.

I've trialled sending via a couple of different SMTP-servers, and that
makes no difference to the behaviour.

I've rebooted the codec, and hence acquired an alternative IP-address
(in a quite different range), but the behaviour remained the same.


The aspect I've investigated as a probable cause is as follows:

Every message carries the originating IP-address as well as that of the
first SMTP-erver.

My IAP, TransACT/iinet, appears to register with Spamhaus the dynamic
IP-addresses that it provides its customers.  (I assume that the reason
is to protect their own spam-reputation, but they've responded slowly,
seldom and uninformatively throughout;  so I don't know that).

An ISP, by registering with Spamhaus the IP-addresses it rents to its
customers makes it impossible to run one's own SMTP server on a
home-LAN.  (I trialled that at one stage a few years back, although, for
me, it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth).


I've never heard of receiving ISPs testing originating IP-address
against Spam databases.

OTOH, some of the messages I've sent from IP-addresses other than that
allocated by iinet have got straight through to the receipient's mailbox
at Yahoo and not to their Spam box.

As I understand it, the purpose of spam-registers is so that ISPs
receiving email can check the IP-address **of the SMTP-server** from
which a message is despatched.  If some threshold volume of messages
from that address is detected as spam, the SMTP-server is registered as
a rogue.  The ISPs that subscribe to that spam-service thereafter
interpret all messages from that SMTP-server as spam, and mark it as
such.  That may result in a warning being inserted into the
Subject-line, markers being inserted into headers which cause the
message to go into recipients' spam-buckets, or (worst of all, when it's
a false positive), simply dropped,


I've been unable to get any action from iinet.  I've also found no way
to get any reaction from Yahoo or Spamhaus.

Any leads or suggested lines of investigation much appreciated!

___

Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] RFI: A Solid Debut?

[Roger Clarke]

Do linkers see this as significant?

Today, Inrupt is publicly releasing our enterprise-grade version of
Solid — Sir Tim’s true vision for the web — to organizations and their
development teams.
November. 9, 2020
https://inrupt.com/enterprise-server-release


https://inrupt.com/solid
Solid is a technology for organizing data, applications, and identities
on the web. Solid enables richer choices for people, organizations and
app developers by building on existing web standards.

But there's no White Paper.


Solid: A Platform for Decentralized Social Applications Based on Linked Data
Sambra et al., 2016
http://emansour.com/research/lusail/solid_protocols.pdf


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] itN: Tabcorp hosts go out, and so does the service

[Roger Clarke]

[ How long ago were the notions of failover and hot-sites mainstream for
major pnline services?  About 40 years, I think.

[ A lot of ISO standards are vague requirements statements rather than
tech specs, but ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO 22301 appear to be relevant. ]


Tabcorp servers damaged after fire at third-party data centre
Causes service issues through the weekend.
Ry Crozier
itNews
Nov 8 2020
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/tabcorp-servers-damaged-after-fire-at-third-party-data-centre-555617

Tabcorp suffered outages to customer-facing services over the weekend
after a "fire incident" caused "extensive damage" to servers it hosted
at [an un-named] third-party data centre.

The problems started at about 11.30am Saturday and continued through the
weekend, with race meetings delayed or postponed as a result.

[ The sport must go on.  Unless it's raison detre disappears of course.]

...


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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

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Re: [LINK] Australian Shareholders' Association

[Roger Clarke]

> On 30/10/20 10:11 am, Roger Clarke wrote:
>> ... assumption needs to always be that 'the law is an ass  ...

On 31/10/20 9:50 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
> Court hearings are now held online. Would a judge at an online meeting
> decide that online meetings are not legal?

That would depend.


> If they did you could appeal the decision on the grounds the online
> hearing was not legal, based on the precedent set by that judgement. Of
> course if the hearing was not legal then the decision is not valid, so
> it is not a precedent, in which case it is. ;-)

Yes, nice ploy.  But highly-paid draftsdogs and even more highly-paid
litigation lawyers could finesse their way around that without a blink.

A beginner's gambit that even this mediocre bush-lawyer can come up with
is to note that court hearings take place under a completely different
branch of law from mere human beings' meetings.

An important example is the Federal Court Rules:
https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/law-and-practice/rules-acts-and-regulations
> Federal Court Rules
> The rules provide the procedural framework within which matters are
commenced and conducted in the Federal Court. ...

Mere human beings' meetings are subject to the common law of meetings,
as codified and/or articulated and/or replaced and/or completely
confused by specific laws such as that under which a particular form of
body corporate is incorporated (Corps Act, Associations Incorp. Act,
Coops Act, specific enabling statute, and lots more), and don't ask me
where Equity fits in.

The law is a *complicated* ass.



-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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

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Re: [LINK] Australian Shareholders' Association

[Roger Clarke]

> On 27/10/20 5:00 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:
>> The Government has announced it proposes to make permanent the
>> ability of companies to hold online-only virtual AGM meetings ...

On 30/10/20 9:17 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
> I am surprised any legislation is needed for this. ...

The usual words used to describe the problem are 'legacy issues' and
'failure to use technologically neutral expression'.

Corporations Act s.249L
Contents of notice of meetings of members
http://www8.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca2001172/s249l.html
(1)  A notice of a meeting of a company's members must:
(a)  set out the place, date and time for the meeting ...

Worse still:

s.249R
Time and place for meetings of members
A meeting of a company's members must be held at a reasonable time and
place.

And the let-out provisions are partial only, i.e. a place must be used:

s.249S
Technology
A company may hold a meeting of its members at 2 or more venues using
any technology that gives the members as a whole a reasonable
opportunity to participate.


Even more so than before my entanglements with legal processes during
the last 12 months over the ACS matter, I suggest that the default
assumption needs to always be that 'the law is an ass unless clearly
demonstrated otherwise, and even then any expensive lawyer will be able
to get a judge to overturn the sensibleness and recover ass-ness'.

___


> ... I would have thought
> that a meeting by video conference is a "meeting". After all this allows
> broader access to meetings than a physical room of limited size does.
> When President of the ACS I chaired a meeting of our National Council by
> video conference.
> 
> Also it is odd that the Federal Government would be keen for other
> organizations to have virtual meetings, when it doesn't want to do so
> itself. The National Cabinet was postponed because the Prime Minister
> did not want to have it without his staff beside him physically in the
> room. Also use of virtual or hybrid meetings of parliament has been
> limited.
> 
> 


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

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Re: [LINK] The Corporatisation of Tertiary Training

[Roger Clarke]

> On 21/10/20 1:36 pm, Roger Clarke wrote:
>> [ It's remarkable how long the concept lasted of a university being
>> independent in respect of content development, content projection, and
>> degree-granting. ...

On 26/10/20 8:45 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
> Australian universities were established to provide trained
> professionals and useful research, not just to think great thoughts.
> 
> It is getting more transactional, but it has always been the case that
> if a university didn't produce useful graduates or research, then it
> would have difficulty attracting funding.

Agreed.

But my point was less about whether AWS produces quality materials and
useful graduates - because I have no insights into those questions.

One concern is that the degree is a "collaboration", and "verified by
AWS Educate" - although, the students, after paying for the degree, may
have to pay more to AWS afterwards, because "students in the degree
won’t automatically receive certification from AWS".

The biggest issue, however, is that the statement that the students are
to "gain skills and first-hand knowledge of AWS’ product development
methodology" gives rise to a serious risk that students won't get
general principles and standards-based approaches supplemented by
exposure to several different proprietary tools, but will instead
themselves be tools of AWS's market domination strategy.

___


>> Swinburne Uni launches AWS-backed cloud degree
>> Matt Johnston itNews Oct 21 2020
>> https://www.itnews.com.au/news/swinburne-uni-launches-aws-backed-cloud-degree-554926
>>
> 
> I prefer an approach where you can get a broad education, plus can
> obtain specific industry certifications for a job.
> https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/09/higher-education-in-post-pandemic-world.html
> 
> 
> 


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Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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

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[LINK] The Corporatisation of Tertiary Training

[Roger Clarke]

[ It's remarkable how long the concept lasted of a university being
independent in respect of content development, content projection, and
degree-granting.

[ 'McDonald's University' may have been just a joke.

[ This isn't. ]


Swinburne Uni launches AWS-backed cloud degree
Matt Johnston
itNews
Oct 21 2020
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/swinburne-uni-launches-aws-backed-cloud-degree-554926


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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

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Re: [LINK] Electronic voting in ACT

[Roger Clarke]

EVACS is a home-grown product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Boughton
https://www.linkedin.com/in/clive-boughton-36069920

https://www.digitalelections.com.au/services/
https://www.digitalelections.com.au/evacs/
https://www.digitalelections.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FINAL.Brochure.pdf
https://www.digitalelections.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/CVB_SEA_Updated.pdf


Ask Clive:  clive.bough...@anu.edu.au

___

On 16/10/20 2:00 pm, Stephen Rothwell wrote:
> Hi Kim,
> 
> On Fri, 16 Oct 2020 12:44:24 +1100 Kim Holburn  wrote:
>>
>> Apparently it runs this software:
>>
>> http://www.softimp.com.au/index.html
>>
>> Seems to be an app that runs on various platforms.
>>
>> The system requirements are somewhat alarming:
>>
>> http://www.softimp.com.au/sodis/spa_requirements.html
> 
> I don't think that is what they are running ... see
> 
> https://www.elections.act.gov.au/elections_and_voting/electronic_voting_and_counting
> 
> which leads back to here:
> 
> http://www.softimp.com.au/evacs/index.html
> 
> 
> ___
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> 


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[LINK] Services Aust Brainwave: Let's Use OCR

[Roger Clarke]

[ My memory must be faulty.

[ I thought OCR'ing of incoming documents, and presentation of image
alongside best-machine-guess text, was mainstream about 25 years ago.

[ Can it really be true that no-one told any of the many agencies that
have been handling hard-copy forms about the technology?

[ There's generally pretty adequate payback just in getting something
editable onto case-managers' screens.

[ And, given a 5-20% error-rate, it's essential that it be at least
eyeballed before any form of genuinely algorithmic, rule-based or
purely-empirical/statistical-guess AI/ML/NN is let loose on it. ]


Services Australia trials OCR on Centrelink claims
Capgemini solution accelerates document processing.
Justin Hendry
itNews
Oct 16 2020
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/services-australia-trials-ocr-on-centrelink-claims-554709

Services Australia is trialling an optical character recognition (OCR)
solution to greatly reduce the amount of time it takes Centrelink
paperwork to reach caseworkers for assessment.

First introduced at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the
Capgemini-built solution has been pivotal to accelerate claims
processing during a period of increased demand for welfare support.

It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically
check whether information contained in forms lodged by welfare
applicants and recipients is accurate and complete.

Some 25,000 documents currently pass through the agency’s document
lodgement service each day, meaning it can be days - if not weeks -
before caseworkers can assess claims.

...


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T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

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Re: [LINK] “Twitter Says You Cannot Tweet That You Hope Trump Dies From COVID”

[Roger Clarke]

On 3/10/20 3:38 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:
> vice.com:   “Twitter Says You Cannot Tweet That You Hope Trump Dies From 
> COVID”
> 
> Wonder what Link thinks  

Can't politely ... ?

Can't morally ... ?

Can't without sacrificing claims to humanity / Christian values / ... ?

Oh, they mean 'we're using Artificial Stupidity to intercept attempted
Tweets of that nature before they're broadcast'.  Silly me.


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Re: [LINK] [EFA-Privacy] Smart meters back in the frame

[Roger Clarke]

G'day Jan

On 7/9/20 9:29 am, jwhit--- via Privacy wrote:
> Any truth in this -- you can tell the age of a fridge by a smart meter?
> Seriously
> Not sure it can tell how many people are in the home, either.
> Hype in terms of oversell or over-fear?
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-07/amazon-will-soon-see-inside-millions-of-aussie-homes/12582776

With 5-second- or even 15-second-interval data, the signatures of
devices are very distinct.  The obvious one is heat-lamps.

Basically, once they get organised, police forces will know every
smart-meter-connected on-grid indoor marijuana farm, and can then trump
up an excuse to go in, and knock 'em off, in whichever order suits them.
 We can hope they'll limit their focus to the nasty operations and leave
the little guys alone.  (And, to be fair to the police, I've picked up
no vibes of them using the available data to raid 16yo's bedrooms).

And it would be very naive to hope that electricity companies would
think like utilities and respect the privacy of their subscribers.
They're profitable monopolies, and will monetise their massive hoards of
personal data.

Aded to that, legal protection is a forlorn hope.  The Privacy Act was
designed to protect corporations from the ravages of privacy law, not
personal data from private-sector wolves.

So no, it's not an undue scare article.

Oh, and unoccupied premises are obvious even with 30-minute-interval
data, which even the 15-20 year-old digital interval meters transmit.

Surveillance society is alive and well, and there's not enough
appreciation of it, nor enough fightback.

Regards  ...  Roger

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Re: [LINK] RFI: How should virtual group members interact with one another?

[Roger Clarke]

Thanks all, this is useful stuff!

Responding to one aspect only:

On 19/8/20 11:38 am, David Lochrin wrote:
> I'm not clear about the requirement for primary & secondary
subchannels.   Is this intended to be a hierarchy of interest groups,
each with its own moderator, membership, and list of topics?

My thinking is that an alive group generates topic-areas where the
short-term 'thread' notion becomes inappropriate (particularly for
everyone who *isn't* interested), and a medium-term venue is better.

Yonks ago, for example, someone (Tony Barry?) instituted the unlink
list, as a generic Link Institute parking-space for such things.

In some contexts, some would no doubt formalise.

'The Committee' or 'IT Support' could of course create and seed a few
'secondary sub-channels' (provisional descriptor, and a pretty awful
one).  I'm unimpressed with Slack, but it does make the available
sub-channels visible, without imposing them too much on channel-members.


Declaration:  I'm interested in the topic for a range of organisations.

A particular area of interest is the ACS.  It currently provides *no*
capacity for members to cross-communicate.  Agreed:  There are dangers
in a 5,000-prof'l-member, or a 10,000-voting-member, list / forum.

But there are also dangers in having no channel at all.
(The attempted hijack of the ACS has been made much easier by the
preclusion of opponents of the clique from reaching the membership).

Another interest is Internet Australia.  As Coy Secy I need to think
about whether we should be shifting members to a new environment, or
whether the existing listman lists are about as good as it gets.

I'm not sure whether the privacy community feels such a need, but again,
as Secy of APF, I should be thinking about such questions.



> On 2020-08-18 15:47, Roger Clarke wrote:
>> A virtual organisation (e.g. The Link Institute, or a professional, 
>> occupational, advocacy or common interest group) needs a channel for 
>> communications among members.> 
>> In 2020, what would the Link Institute recommend as that channel?


On 19/8/20 11:38 am, David Lochrin wrote:
> This is an interesting question.  I think much of DEC's success during their 
> salad days in the 1980's when revenue grew to half that of IBM was due to a 
> package known as DEC Notes.  This allowed every DEC employee to discuss 
> pretty much anything within the company, and some product-engineering 
> managers copped quite a roasting on occasion.  Notes also allowed restricted 
> membership where necessary, e.g. for discussion of gay or women's issues.  It 
> was simple to use while covering a lot of ground, with no "eye candy".
> 
> The closest thing I know would probably be Whirlpool, but IMO its page layout 
> should be revised and the content better organised, and its possibly 
> attempting to do too much.
> 
> I'm not clear about the requirement for primary & secondary subchannels.   Is 
> this intended to be a hierarchy of interest groups, each with its own 
> moderator, membership, and list of topics?
> 
> On 2020-08-18 16:53, Karl Auer wrote:
>> TBH in this space less is more.
> 
> Absolutely...   
> 
> David Lochrin


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[LINK] RFI: How should virtual group members interact with one another?

[Roger Clarke]

A virtual organisation (e.g. The Link Institute, or a professional,
occupational, advocacy or common interest group) needs a channel for
communications among members.

In 2020, what would the Link Institute recommend as that channel?


A quick list of requirements is below (off-the-top-of-the-head).

Can anyone point to a more careful requirements statement than mine is?


Some categories and names that come to mind are:
-   Email-Lists
-   Listman
-   Old-Style BBS / Message Boards / Internet/Discussion Fora / Groups
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_forums
-   Yahoo! Groups (now reverted to email-list operations?)
-   Google Groups
-   Whirlpool
-   Social Media
-   LinkedIn
-   Reddit
-   New-Style
-   Slack
-   Commercial
-   Trello
-   GroupSpaces
http://groupspaces.com/pricing

Is anyone aware of a feature-comparison of alternative channels, from
the viewpoint of virtual associations?



Quick List of Requirements (off-the-top-of-the-head):

-   channel membership management, flexible, enabling any of:
-   open for any email-address to subscribe to
-   limited to email-addresses of people who join the organisation
-   subject to channel-manager add, amend, suspend, delete, ban
-   scope for selective moderation, selected by poster or content,
including amendment and forwarding
-   scope for selective deletion of sub-channels, individual posts

-   sub-channels:
-   primary (with channel-subscribers default-subscribed to it)
-   secondary sub-channels (requiring opt-in)
-   easy spawning of a sub-channel from a thread,
duplicating the thread-archive across to the channel-archive

-   member access options
-   postings forwarded to the subscriber's email-address
-   digests forwarded to the subscriber's email-address
-   web-based interface with login required, and
displays by channel, sub-channel and thread

-   member posting options
-   new post on existing thread
-   create new thread and post to it
-   reply-to poster-only (default)
-   reply-all, within thread or sub-channel (needs to be selected)

-   post-content options:
-   unformatted text, with links
-   lightly formatted text, with links
-   image-thumbnail, auto-linked to document / image / sound / video

-   notification settings available with one click (default off) for:
-   all posts
-   all posts on the main channel
-   all posts on a specific sub-channel
-   all posts on a nominated thread
-   all posts by nominated posters

-   thread unsubscribe with one click

-   agnostic to device-type, OS and browser / application,
i.e. designed for use on all handhelds, desktops, etc.

-   archival, with search facility, global, by sub-channel, by thread,
with unlimited or at least very long retention

-   minimal lock-in, especially to rapacious 'social media' juggernauts
Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.

-   no or minimal rights for a service-provider to access and to use
or disclose content of, or metadata relating to, channel traffic

-   scope for interoperability with other channels (open protocols)

-   scope for portability of archives to other channels (open standards)

-   integrated access to this and other channels:
-   by means of a single application
-   by means of a single-service



Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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[LINK] It's marvellous what passes for news

[Roger Clarke]

ASX automates over half its software testing
As it works to bring new features online faster.
Ry Crozier
itNews
Aug 18 2020

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has automated just over half of
the 68,000 test cases needed to ensure software underpinning Australia’s
financial markets remains reliable and functioning as intended.
...
The ASX is seven years into test case automation, a journey that started
out with Simon Miller - ASX’s test automation manager - and a single
copy of QuickTest Professional (QTP).
...
“It was just me working on one platform using QTP,” Miller told Micro
Focus’ Realize 2020 ANZ virtual summit.

“Now obviously I was doing the best job I could, but there's only so
much one person can do. There was a lot of low coverage.”

Fast-forward seven years, and there's now a team of 29 people “currently
involved in test automation at the ASX, working across all our domains
and multiple applications,” he said.
...


In my early years, I actually had to feed the test-data card-set into
the reader, and operate the console to do test-runs.  And that had to be
at night, after the day's production-runs had all finished.

At the London Stock Exchange (LSX), the large test-team working on
TALISMAN developed a small sub-system to run the testing.

My early unautomated work was 1971-75.  TALISMAN was 1977-79.

So 'news' that's 40 years old is worth re-cycling??

(And in 2013, there was a single person at ASX using tools to assist in
application software testing??).


On the positive side, it's nice to see a rare mention of *any* aspect of
quality assurance - even if it's the second-last-gasp / alpha-testing
phase, which is at the late and expensive end of the QA palette.


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Re: [LINK] nbn is offering assistance to switch back to your old broadband service if you were on the TransACT network

[Roger Clarke]

I got one as well.

From some experience with how lawyers work in such circumstances, the
judge or tribunal member gave an ambiguous instruction, or the legal
bureaucrat in ACCC drafted an ambiguous undertaking for NBNCo to sign.

When interpreting the undertaking, the NBNCo bods figured they needed to
send the 'mea culpa' letter to all addresses to which the original,
offending letter had been sent.

As far as I can see, NBNCo didn't have access to TransACT's records of
which addresses were VDSL2-connected, nor the ISPs' records of who the
subscribers were at which addresses.

Both my original and recent letters were addressed:

To the occupant


__

On 7/8/20 5:13 pm, Stephen Rothwell wrote:
> Hi Kim,
> 
> On Fri, 7 Aug 2020 15:13:56 +1000 Kim Holburn  wrote:
>>
>> I just got a letter with this title from the NBN.
>>
>>> nbn is offering assistance to switch back to your old broadband
>>> service if you were on the TransACT network.
>>
>>> We previously advised people in the ACT that thy were likely to need
>>> to switch to the NBN™ network if they wanted to keep a fixed line
>>> and/or internet service.
>>
>>> It has come to our attention that the advice was wrong for people
>>> connected to the TransACT VDSL2 network.
>>
>> ...
>>
>>> We have sent this letter as part of a court enforceable undertaking
>>> that we have provided to the Australian Competition and Conduct
>>> Commission following an investigation it conducted. ...
>>
>> https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/nbn-co-misled-canberra-consumers-about-needing-to-move-to-the-nbn
> 
> I just got an email to the same effect ... but I never switched over to
> the NBN ...  I guess I got this one because they did send me several of
> the misleading mails over time.
> 
> 
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Re: [LINK] FW: Urgent warning for aged care providers of potential ransomware attacks

[Roger Clarke]

From: Department of Health 
Sent: Sunday, 2 August 2020 4:31 PM
> URGENT WARNING OF POTENTIAL RANSOMWARE ATTACKS ON AGED CARE PROVIDERS
> A major aged care provider has recently suffered a ransomware attack
with a partially successful attempt to encrypt and steal confidential
data in order to seek ransom payment. ...

[ The data privacy aspects pale into insignificance in comparison with
the denial of access to critical health care data.

[ Unfortunately, the standards of data security in organisations of all
sizes remains disastrously low.  We've long bleated about governments'
falure to set baselines and enforce them, e.g.:
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/SSACS.html#SS
http://www.xamax.com.au/EC/ISInfo.pdf
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/PBAR.html#PB

[ But the situation now is no better than it was a decade ago.

[ This morning's news of a successful ransom hit underlines the issues:

Travel giant CWT pays $6.3m ransom to cyber criminals
Jack Stubbs
itNews
Aug 1 2020

... The hackers initially demanded a payment of US$10 million to restore
CWT's files and delete all the stolen data, according to the messages
reviewed by Reuters. ...

[ The claim of 'stolen data' remains murky, and likely a red herring.
It appears that CWT had failed to establish suitable backup and recovery
procuders with a secure and sufficiently up-to-date copy of all relevant
data and software, and hence its operations were severely compromised
once it was locked out of the live versions of its databases. ]

__


From: Department of Health 
Sent: Sunday, 2 August 2020 4:31 PM

> URGENT WARNING OF POTENTIAL RANSOMWARE ATTACKS ON AGED CARE PROVIDERS
> A major aged care provider has recently suffered a ransomware attack with a 
> partially successful attempt to encrypt and steal confidential data in order 
> to seek ransom payment.
> The provider has proactively responded and secured their data, but its 
> possible some data has been published.
> Today the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has produced a new advisory 
> to assist you and your organisations.
> Please read this 
> advisory<https://health.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1108de8332cef333bc1956686=160c9582f0=deb2803d20>
>  and note the following key recommendations from the ACSC:
> Never pay a ransom demand
> We recommend you do not pay the ransom if affected by Maze ransomware. There 
> is no guarantee paying the ransom will fix your devices, and it could make 
> you vulnerable to further attacks. Restore your files from 
> backup<https://health.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1108de8332cef333bc1956686=59a05712aa=deb2803d20>
>  and seek technical advice.
> 
> Identify and backup critical information and systems
> Backing up and 
> restoring<https://health.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1108de8332cef333bc1956686=50d5cdec70=deb2803d20>
>  your files offers peace of mind and makes it faster and easier to get up and 
> running again following a ransomware attack.
> 
> Keep your systems and software up to date through regular patching
> All your personal or business devices including your phone, tablet, computer 
> or laptop use software to run, such as operating systems like Microsoft 
> Windows or Apple MacOS; and antivirus, web browsers or word processors at 
> work.  These require regular patching to keep them up to date so that new 
> vulnerabilities are addressed.
> 
> Use antivirus software and keep it up to date
> Install antivirus software on all devices and set the software to 
> automatically check for 
> updates<https://health.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1108de8332cef333bc1956686=a1bb6fd2c1=deb2803d20>
>  on a daily basis.
> You can access this advice as well as broader advice on how to improve your 
> cyber resilience at 
> cyber.gov.au<https://health.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1108de8332cef333bc1956686=28053164bb=deb2803d20>.
> Department of Health
> 
> Copyright © 2020 Advice to the Aged Care Industry, All rights reserved.


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Re: [LINK] Ten Dollar Telepresence Robot for the COVID-Safer Classroom

[Roger Clarke]

On 2/8/20 9:31 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
> On 1/8/20 12:01 pm, Peter Batchelor wrote:
> 
>> ... upmarket version of Tom’s device: essentially an iPad on a Segway ...
> 
> Yes, the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) had one of these
> tablets-on-wheels to greet people in the foyer and escort them to
> reception. It was a bit unnerving when the lift doors opened to see this
> thing looking at you and it did not last long.
> 
> Also I just discovered CBRIN hosted the start-up "MissingSchool" with
> three wheel telepresence robots for sick kids to attend school
> virtually. With older teachers now at risk of COVID-19, perhaps the
> students should be in the classroom and the teacher remote:
> https://www.missingschool.org.au/page/80/telepresence

That's a nice application of one of de Bono's test-cases.

(If crawling child is mucking up granny's knitting-balls, *don't* put
the baby back in the cage.  Put Granny in the cage, and leave the child
with the rest of the room to investigate.   Mmmm, how quaintly dated
that is:  cages, or whatever we called them, have gone out of fashion).

Unfortunately, that mode unlikely to fulfil a crucial element of the
teaching profession's offering - child-minding.


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[LINK] ACCC's Mandatory Media Bargaining Code

[Roger Clarke]

ters, commence
court proceedings.

ACCC chair Rod Sims said the code, which takes the approaches the
experience of other regulators and policymakers in other countries into
account, to address the power imbalance between digital platforms and
news organisations.

“There is a fundamental bargaining power imbalance between news media
businesses and the major digital platforms, partly because news
businesses have no option but to deal with the platforms, and have had
little ability to negotiate over payment for their content or other
issues,” he said.

“We wanted a model that would address this bargaining power imbalance
and result in fair payment for content, which avoided unproductive and
drawn-out negotiations, and wouldn’t reduce the availability of
Australian news on Google and Facebook.”

“We believe our proposed draft code achieves these purposes.”

Consultation on the code will close on August 28.


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Re: [LINK] Cheap, popular and it works: Ireland's contact-tracing app success

[Roger Clarke]

On 21/7/20 12:16 pm, Glen Turner wrote:
> I'd add that success should be measured by the system's usefulness to
> contact tracers.
> 
> Conversely, the Apple+Google model places the person holding the phone
> as the "user" of the app. I'd argue that this is a US-centric view not
> well suited to countries with effective public health agencies.
> 
> BTW, I'm not sure that accuracy is an attribute needed for success.
> Consider that requiring the scanning of a big QR poster upon entry to a
> commercial premises isn't that accurate but would be just as as
> effective for contact tracing as all the Bluetooth messing about.

The 'accuracy' thing has been critical to the success of manual
contact-tracing.  They haven't extended the catchment too far, and
consequently they have cred, and people who they nominate as being
at-risk generally take them seriously.

A major problem with Bluetooth signal-strength as a proxy for proximity
is that the correlation between the two can be petty poor.  So, to
include enough really-at-risk people in your list, you have to open out
to include a lot of low-risk people as well.  (Leave aside the 6-12
other problems with the whole 'put your trust in tech' approach).

The QR-code-at-the-shop-entrance has similar problems, because it too is
a poor proxy for proximity.  It may have some application in a very
small shop (extreme case: premises in which most people go to the
counter and it's the shop-assistant who was the carrier), but even then
the time factor can matter.

We should be drawing on the distilled wisdom of the contact-tracing
teams, to work out the factors that they consider - and to find out the
contexts in which they fear they may have missed some people who, with
hindsight, they should have prioritised for isolation and testing.


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Re: [LINK] Cheap, popular and it works: Ireland's contact-tracing app success

[Roger Clarke]

>> “The whole of the organisation attuned itself and focused on coronavirus,” 
>> said Fran Thompson, a HSE spokesperson. The pandemic allowed the HSE to 
>> shortcut the regular tender process and select NearForm in mid-March. “It 
>> probably saved six to eight weeks,” said Thompson.
>>
>> NearForm employs 150 people and builds software mostly for private clients. 
>> It is based in a former council office in Tramore, a seaside town in County 
>> Waterford, but has international pedigree, with developers scattered across 
>> 21 countries. Clients include Condé Nast, Intel and Microsoft.
>>
>> Following Singapore’s lead, NearForm’s developers raced to build a 
>> centralised app that used smartphones’ Bluetooth connectivity to trace 
>> people who come into close contact with infected people.
>>
>> By April, they had a version but were struggling with Bluetooth. It worked 
>> with Android but Apple’s iPhone operating system sent apps to sleep when 
>> unused and Bluetooth could not activate them.
>>
>> “We quickly hit the same problems as other countries,” said Harte. A 
>> centralised system also raised alarms about storing data and breaching 
>> privacy.
>>
>> Then Apple and Google came together and offered an app that would support 
>> public health apps and let Android and iOS phones connect even while locked. 
>> Their decentralised version held no data in a single official database, 
>> alleviating privacy concerns.
>>
>> The Irish were among the first to grasp Silicon Valley’s offer in late 
>> April. “We got in early and it was full steam ahead. It allowed us to move 
>> on,” said Harte.
>>
>> Britain, meanwhile, persisted with attempts to make a customised app until 
>> last month when it made a U-turn and embraced the model preferred by Apple 
>> and Google.
> 
> 


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[LINK] Slow Smart Cities

[Roger Clarke]

[ At least it seems like slow progress to me - it must be 5-7 years
since the 'smart city' notion was the rage.  Am I being unfair? ]


Victoria's largest council begins developing new smart city strategy
City of Casey begins consultation.
Matt Johnston
itNews
Jul 2 2020
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/victorias-largest-council-begins-developing-new-smart-city-strategy-549995

Victoria’s most populous local government area has begun developing a
new smart city strategy to capitalise on existing smart infrastructure
and deliver improved services for ratepayers.

The City of Casey in Melbourne’s southeast is currently seeking feedback
from residents and technology suppliers on how it can build on earlier
‘demonstration projects’.

The push comes as the city continues to experience rapid population
growth and urbanisation which present diverse challenges to the
community, including sustainability, liveability, and economic development.

The current consultation process will inform how the council progresses
its use of technology and data to support further developments, after a
previous 2017-2021 smart city strategy expires.

A range of smart city infrastructure was put in place under the previous
strategy, including connected street furniture that provides free wi-fi,
barbecues that monitor usage and notify council when it needs repairs,
and smart parking sensors.

It has also established a low power wide area network using LoRaWAN
technology with 11 gateways that covers 80 percent of the municipality
to support internet of things (IoT) deployments that businesses and
residents can tap into.

Council chief executive officer Glenn Patterson said in a post on
LinkedIn that these developments are needed now more than ever due to
the severe disruption caused by the coronavirus health crisis.

“In order to continue to increase our community’s resilience, and
support Casey’s diverse environmental, social and economic needs,
council is committed to learning how technology, data and innovation –
smart city infrastructure - can unlock new opportunities and help us
overcome persistent challenges,” Patterson said.


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
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[LINK] Fwd: Updates on CovidSAFE App

[Roger Clarke]

G'day Stil

'COVIDSafe might actually be useful after all' may not be your choice of
headline, but it's pretty silly:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/covidsafe-might-actually-be-useful-after-all/

The Currie et al. paper is useful, in its own world:
https://www.phrp.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/COVIDApp-Fig1-002.png

I did some prelim modelling back in mid-April, on similar lines:
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/CVM.pdf
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/CVMT.pdf

But the end of the game where we can deliver some value is in ICT.
And no-one seems to be interested in cold, hard technology assessment.

No-one seems to be interested in conceptual design, critical thought,
lab experimentation, field testing, metricating the release, assessing
the results, reporting the results.

Bluetooth RSSI as a proxy for proximity has a superficial attraction,
and was well worth investigating.

But it's a lemon crossed with a red herring.

The following paper summarised the reasons why COVIDsafe was clearly a
waste of space, *9 weeks ago*:

The Effectiveness of Bluetooth Proximity Apps
in Tracing People with COVID-19 Exposure Risk
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/EBPA.html (30 April 2020)

And that builds on and summarises investigative work that had already
been done by researchers and practitioners.

This one is a polite rendition of what the app may really be about:

The Many Faces of the COVIDsafe App
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/CSAF.html (1 May 2020)

And this talks about the professional responsibility to undertake
technical analysis rather than falling in line with government
propaganda, as both Pearcey and the ACS signatories did.  (Where oh
where did critical thinking by ICT professionals disappear to??):

The COVIDsafe App: A Case Study in Professional Responsibility
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/CSAI.html (12 May 2020)

For the first month or two in particular, the politicians were far
better-behaved on a major policy issue than we've seen in years.  But a
great deal of the ICT community has been hopelessly irresponsible.

Yours in high dudgeon  ...  Roger


 Forwarded Message 
Subject: Re: [LINK] Updates on CovidSAFE App
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2020 10:12:25 +
From: Stephen Loosley 
To: link@mailman.anu.edu.au 

Stil, a long-time linker, this afternoon writes ..


COVIDSafe might actually be useful after all

New modelling suggests that Australia's troubled contact tracing app
could help mitigate the severity of a COVID-19 second wave if problems
are fixed and more people use it.

By Stilgherrian for The Full Tilt | June 30, 2020 - 16:23 AEST
https://www.zdnet.com/article/covidsafe-might-actually-be-useful-after-all/


COVIDSafe, Australia's coronavirus contact tracing app, may not be
totally useless, according to modelling released on Tuesday by the Sax
Institute in Sydney.

The peer-reviewed research (also published today at
https://www.phrp.com.au/issues/june-2020-volume-30-issue-2/steming-the-flow-how-much-can-the-australian-smartphone-app-help-to-control-covid-19/)
shows that it would be "vital" to continue social distancing and
large-scale testing to avoid a so-called "second wave" of COVID-19
infections, but also that COVIDSafe "has the potential to be an
important adjunct".

"Depending on the level of community uptake of the app, it could have a
significant mitigating effect on a second wave of COVID-19 in
Australia," they wrote.

The team calibrated their model using actual Australian data up to 16
May 2020. They modelled five scenarios out to December 31, varying the
tapering off of social restrictions and testing, and different levels of
COVIDSafe use.

"In all five scenarios, the modelling projects a second wave of COVID-19
if the easing of restrictions continues," the researchers wrote. The
size and timing of the second wave would depend on how quickly
restrictions are lifted.

"In all scenarios, a high app uptake (61% or 80%) noticeably flattens
the epidemic curve, giving time for the health system to respond and
social distancing measures to be promoted," they wrote.

"The COVIDSafe app has the potential to moderate the size of the second
wave. The effect of the app increases as its uptake increases, to a
disproportionately greater extent than the increment in uptake."

The researchers looked at a "high level" of app uptake: 61% of the
population. That's their estimate of the proportion of Australians with
a smartphone, in the age range likely to use the app (older than 14
years), and with the technical literacy to download it.

At this level, the number of second-wave COVID-19 cases was reduced by
between one-third and three-fifths when compared with zero app use,
depending on the scenario.

At 80% app use, the reduction in cases was more than 70% in three of the
five scenarios -- although the researchers 

[LINK] RFI: messagelabs.com

[Roger Clarke]

 [67.219.250.13 listed in list.dnswl.org]
 -0.0 RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_H2  RBL: Average reputation (+2)
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 anti-forgery methods
X-Spam-Flag: NO

The following word(s) in your email with subject "Re: A Bird With No Name!=
!! or When is a chough not a chough?" have been detected as possible profa=
nity; bastard
This may be our email filtering system misinterpreting some words within y=
our email,  however, please review the content of your email to ensure it =
complies with the SVHA Acceptable Use Policy, available on the Intranet.

You are reminded that swearing or other objectionable content is forbidden=
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Your original email has not been modified or impacted, and will have been =
delivered to it=E2=80=99s intended recipient.

This possible breach of Acceptable Use has been logged

For any questions, please contact the SVHA IT Helpdesk.


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] Norway halts coronavirus app over privacy concerns

[Roger Clarke]

MIT Tech Review is assumed to be a reliable outlet, but can anyone point
to anything that justifies use of the word 'success' in relation to any
contact tracing app, especially one that depends on Bluetooth for
proxy-measures of proximity?

> ... New contact tracing apps are seeing mixed success ...

The article completely fails to consider the nature of the technology
underlying such schemes.

It may be that the few mass surveillance schemes that mandatorily record
and transmit the geo-tracks of device-carriers have proven to be of some
value in relation to disease-control;  but that can't be simply assumed.

_

On 16/6/20 10:49 pm, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
> Norway halts coronavirus app over privacy concerns
> MIT Technology Review
> 15 June 2020
> https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/15/1003562/norway-halts-coronavirus-app-over-privacy-concerns/
> 
> The news: Norway is halting its coronavirus contact tracing app,
> Smittestopp, after criticism from the Norwegian Data Protection
> Authority, which said that the country’s low rate of infections meant
> that the app’s privacy invasions were no longer justified. As a result,
> the app will cease collecting new data, all data collected so far is
> being deleted, and work on it is effectively paused indefinitely.
> 
> The background: Norway’s infection rate is steady and among the lowest
> in Europe. However, officials at the Norwegian Institute of Public
> Health (NIPH) disagreed with the decision, according to local reports.
> 
> “With this, we weaken an important part of our preparedness for
> increased spread of infection, because we lose time in developing and
> testing the app,” NIPH director Camilla Stoltenberg said in a statement
> on Monday. “At the same time, we have a reduced ability to fight the
> spread of infection that is ongoing. The pandemic is not over. We have
> no immunity in the population, no vaccine, and no effective treatment.
> Without the Smittestopp app, we will be less equipped to prevent new
> outbreaks that may occur locally or nationally.”
> 
> The context: New contact tracing apps are seeing mixed success as the
> virus itself continues to ebb and flow around the world. Norway opted
> against using privacy-focused technology developed by Google and Apple,
> and its app failed on marks of data minimization and transparency in MIT
> Technology Review’s Covid Tracing Tracker.
> 
> However, the situation is not the same all across Europe. Italy was the
> first country in on the continent to be badly hit, and Immuni, the
> contact tracing app backed by the government in Rome, was released
> recently to relatively positive reviews and quickly adopted by the
> Italian residents who are able to download it. Immuni does use the
> technology developed by Google and Apple. It received full marks on all
> criteria, including minimization and transparency, in the tracker database.
> 
> The United Kingdom has had its own struggles, choosing to build its own
> centralized technology instead of using the Silicon Valley system. The
> government’s contact tracing app is expected to finally be launched
> nationwide by June or July, according to the BBC. A slow and often rocky
> development process has left many confused and critical of the final
> product.
> 
> The reaction to these apps globally has led to profound skepticism about
> whether they will help fight the coronavirus in most countries. There
> are two sides to that question. Many wonder about the efficacy and
> accuracy of this brand-new technology. Perhaps just as important is the
> widespread public apprehension about digital medical surveillance, as
> well as uncertainty about whether the apps will gain mainstream
> acceptance and just how widespread adoption needs to be to save lives
> and stop the pandemic.
> 


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] COVIDSafe ‘extremely limited’: New research

[Roger Clarke]

can QR
> codes at locations they go to. The two countries have regularly been
> sharing information on their different approaches and the potential to
> coordinate them, with New Zealand participating in the ministerial council.
> 
> The effectiveness of contact tracing apps relies nearly entirely on
> trust in the government, and any negative revelations or lack of
> transparency will also impact its effectiveness, the report found.
> 
> “The ethical justification of the app rests upon its capacity to deliver
> significant benefits to communities and individuals in ways which
> respect legitimate concerns about, for instance, consent, the security
> and use of information, the preservation of a role for human judgement
> and the possibility that the app will exacerbate existing social
> inequalities,” it said.
> 
> “It is possible that a lack of evidence and low uptake will diminish
> trust, and have negative spill-over effects to other recommendations
> that government might be making in managing the pandemic.
> 
> “This suggests that governments promoting contact tracing apps ought to
> ensure that their statements about efficacy are restricted to those that
> can be justified by the evidence.
> 
> “While digital contact tracing has distinct advantages, it requires the
> right functionality – and enhanced manual tracing apps such as
> Australia’s COVIDSafe, which do not enable instantaneous notification,
> will not achieve the enhanced speed required for success.
> 
> Digital Contact Tracing for COVID-19: A Primer for Policymakers was
> funded and developed by researchers and staff at the Centre for Social
> Data Analytics. <https://issr.uq.edu.au/files/14448/PolicyPrimer.pdf>
> 
> It was written by academics from the four universities: Rhema
> Vaithianathan, Matthew Ryan, Nina Anchugina, Linda Selvey, Tim Dare and
> Anna Brown.
> 


-- 
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] NBNCo Breach results in a belting with a feather duster

[Roger Clarke]

NBN Co must pay TPG, Canberra VDSL2 users for disconnection notice bungle
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-must-pay-tpg-canberra-vdsl2-users-for-disconnection-notice-bungle-548857

NBN Co misled Canberra consumers about needing to move to the NBN
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/nbn-co-misled-canberra-consumers-about-needing-to-move-to-the-nbn

On the one hand it's good to see action at last.

On the other hand, the absence of any meaningful penalty means that 
there's no deterrent against such breaches by NBNCo or anyone else.


It seems more like an open invitation to organisations to breach the 
law.  That's because:

(a)  the chances of attracting the attention of a resource-limited
 regulator are pretty low;  and
(b)  the costs are limited to reparations, and hence a rational
 company can see a net profit from breaking the law, even if
 they get caught out.

It was particularly galling that the blunder (if that's what it was) was 
committed in relation to domestic premises as late as the first half of 
2019.


In July *2018*, I drew the same errors in relation to business premises 
to the attention of NBNCo's Exec GM, Business Sales and Marketing, Ben 
Salmon.  He replied, but vacuously.  To me, that's indicative of an 
intention to flout the law.


See the email exchange below.


-Original Message-
From: Roger Clarke [mailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, 26 July 2018 4:00 PM
To: Ben Salmon 
Subject: Re: 'Your business is ready to be connected'

Dear Exec Assistant to Ben Salmon

Emails to ben.sal...@nbn.com.au and c...@nbn.com.au bounced.

I then emailed to ben.sal...@nbnco.com.au, c...@nbnco.com.au.
The ceo address bounced.

However - apparent success - the Ben.Salmon one didn't.

A copy is below.

I'd greatly appreciate an acknowledgement of receipt (and a substantive 
response in due course).


I appreciate that your standard practice may well be to send 
acknowledgements of receipt, but given the uncertainties involved with 
email-addresses, this one's particularly important.


Many thanks  ...  Roger Clarke

__

Mr Ben Salmon
Executive General Manager
Business Sales and Marketing
NBNCo
100 Arthur St
North Sydney  NSW  2060

Dear Ben

On 25 July 2018, I received a letter from you, addressed "To the 
manager", and bearing the date 18 July 2018, reference Location ID: 
LOC000111875787.


It declares to me that "Your business is ready to be connected".  As 
will be apparent from what follows, that catchphrase may be appealing to 
a marketing consultancy or a PR person, but it's quite wrong, both for 
my business and, I'm sure, for many others that receive the letter.


Your letter informs me that "Most existing landline phone and internet 
[sic] networks in your area will be disconnected from 17 January 1920".

It is then vague about whether my services are affected by that stipulation.

Your letter and the accompanying brochure refer to "landline" multiple 
times, although there is also a mention of "copper" on p.5 of the brochure.


As far as I could see, nothing on the NBNCo web-site, including the 
FAQs, provides any meaningful assistance with the uncertainties created 
by your letter.
I eventually found small-print on p.9 of the brochure, which refers to 
"landline networks, including copper and the majority of HFC networks 
within the fixed line footprint" and says "fibre networks ... may not be 
affected".


1.  It would be helpful to recipients if your letter contained the 
correct date, which is 25 January 2020 (i.e. both the day and the year 
were wrong).


2.  It would be helpful to recipients, if your letter wasn't vague about 
whether any landlines to the identified Location will or will not (under 
current arrangements) be disconnected on the relevant date.


3.  It would be helpful to recipients if your letter explained quite 
specifically what "landline" means in their particular context.


3.1  Does 'landline' include the coax cables used by both Telstra and 
Optus to support their (originally) PayTV service?  (To NBNCo or a 
telecomms engineer, "HFC networks" may mean the same thing, but your 
letter is addressed to managers of mostly small businesses).


3.2  Does 'landline' include the coax cables used for many years by 
TransACT/iiNet/TPG to deliver a VDSL/2 service in many parts of Canberra?
The Location in question lies within the TransACT footprint, so 
presumably everyone who uses the TransACT service has received or will 
receive the same letter, and has been or will be left wondering what it 
actually means.


It's particularly confusing given that:
(a)  TransACT users have copper running from the nearest node to their 
premises, which appears to be included within the "landline networks, 
including copper" that you say will be "disconnected";  and
(b)  TransACT users already have a VDS

[LINK] RFC: RIP Robo-Debt

[Roger Clarke]

I've updated my paper on the Robo-Debt scheme, adding an Abstract, 
Postscript and Summary:


  Centrelink's Big Data 'Robo-Debt' Fiasco of 2016-20
  http://rogerclarke.com/DV/CRD17.html

If anything looks wrong, unfair, too glib, etc., please drop me a quick 
note and point me to the problem-areas.  Thanks.


--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] The Aftermath of the Robo-Debt Fiasco

[Roger Clarke]

A little birdie with recent experience inside DHS tells me as follows:
> All the bods in the department who were the brains behind the scheme 
have been promoted and left the Human Services department for other 
departments.  This happened some months ago when public criticism of the 
scheme was getting heated and the class actions were getting warmed up 
for court action; and also the finding that the scheme was basically 
illegal. So those responsible have and will face no repercussions.


No surprises there.

But I thought it best that I pass it on, as confirmation that:
(a)  past patterns continue ('Remember the Access Card!'), and
(b)  my (and your) expressed cynicism was entirely justified.


--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 


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[LINK] OT: Has any COVIDsafe data actually reached contact-tracers?

[Roger Clarke]

[ The government studiously avoids any reporting of the numbers of 
phones that have registered the app, how many of those are still in 
contact with base, how much of the time they're on, the number or 
proportion of new infections that have been associated with a registered 
app, or the number or proportion of those that have resulted in an 
upload.  Nor whether any data has flowed to any of the State and 
Territory contact-tracing teams, and if so whether the data was of any 
value.


[ Following release of the app on 26 April, there have been 22 days and 
c.330 new cases - an average of 15 per day, range 6-28:

https://www.health.gov.au/resources/daily-number-of-reported-covid-19-cases-in-australia

[ However, it was only 5 days ago, on 14 May, that the Chief Medical 
Officer announced "It is ready to go, all the states and territories 
have now signed up to use it":

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-13/coronavirus-tracing-app-covidsafe-now-fully-functional/12244616

[ There have been 12, 28, 20, 9 and 11 = 80 new cases in those 5 days, 
but I've seen no statement that any data has actually flowed.


[ The only indicator reported below is odd:  "10 per cent to 20 per cent 
of users ... don’t regularly update the app on their phones".



COVIDSafe app gets important update
Denham Sadler
itNews18 May 2020
https://www.innovationaus.com/covidsafe-app-gets-important-update/

COVIDSafe has received an important update that fixed a number of bugs 
and improved iPhone functionality. The Opposition and developers are now 
calling on the government to encourage the near-six million Australians 
who have downloaded the contact tracing app to update it.


The Digital Transformation Agency on Wednesday released an update for 
the app, with a very broad description of what was included: “push 
notifications made optional, improvements to Bluetooth security and 
connectivity, accessibility enhancements, bug fixes”.


A further update was rolled out over the weekend removing the daily 
notifications entirely.


Despite the broad wording, Australian developers who have been combing 
over the COVIDSafe source code since it was released said that the 
update included a number of fixes for security issues and bugs, and goes 
a long way to fix the app’s performance issues on Apple devices.


The update fixed a vulnerability that could have allowed for tracking of 
the unique identifiers through the app, software developer Jim Mussared 
said, and also removed the potential for denial of service attack and 
also greatly improved the functionality of the app while running in the 
background on iPhones.


There have been muddled and contradictory messages from the government 
and DTA over COVIDSafe’s performance on iPhones and effectiveness when 
not running in the foreground. The update has gone a long way towards 
fixing these issues, Mr Mussared said.


“I’m almost disappointed for the DTA that they can’t get out there and 
scream from the rooftops because unfortunately they said it was never 
broken,” he said.


“There has to be some admission of the way they addressed serious 
security issues, and it would be really wonderful if they could say they 
fixed the iPhone. Now it works as well as they said it used to.


“That’s important because people are not installing the app because they 
think it doesn’t work and they haven’t told people it has been fixed.”


The government’s attention and public communications have still been 
focused on trying to convince more Australians to download the COVIDSafe 
app, with restrictions easing around the country.


But there needed to be more focus on ensuring everyone who has already 
downloaded it to proactively update the app if they do not have these 
turned on automatically, shadow assistant minister for cybersecurity Tim 
Watts said.


“An important update to the COVIDSafe iPhone app was released today 
improving both the security and the ability of the app to register 
contacts,” Mr Watts said.


“While the PM regularly urges people to download the app he’s said 
nothing about the need for people to update this app,” he said.


Speaking in Parliament last week, Mr Watts said that if the Apple and 
Google API for contact tracing app is incorporated into COVIDSafe, there 
would need to be a significant campaign to ensure enough people update 
the app.


“It’s now important that the government prioritises incorporating the 
Google-Apple API iOS integration as soon as possible to maximise the 
number of potential contacts caught. Once this new version is released, 
we’ll also need a new public information campaign to encourage people to 
update the app to catch the 10 per cent to 20 per cent of users who 
don’t regularly update the app on their phones,” he said.


“This app could play an important role in helping us move beyond the 
current coronavirus restrictions, so it’s important that the government 
gets its implementation right.

[LINK] NSW Health Notifications of Negative Virus Test results

[Roger Clarke]

[ NSW Health wrote some software to automate the flow of negative 
results from a pathology system out to the relevant mobile phone.


[ Good.

[ But am I being churlish in thinking this is a pretty simple project, 
and didn't need a suite of expensive organisations to be involved?


https://www.itnews.com.au/news/how-an-sms-bot-helped-nsw-health-cut-covid-19-test-result-wait-times-548083

... a [sic] SMS text bot engine that automates the contact process ... 
was released just weeks into the height of the pandemic, was developed 
by AWS, Deloitte, Microsoft and Mulesoft ...


Bolevich said it had enabled the state’s laboratory information system 
to “feed a negative result through an SMS text bot engine … and deliver 
those negative results to patients”.



--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 


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Re: [LINK] Hackathon Friday to Secure Defence Supply Chain Against Pandemics

[Roger Clarke]

On 13/5/20 11:59 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
Senator Linda Reynolds, the Australian Minister for Defence, announced 
today the Australian and New Zealand Defence Forces will host a joint 
hackathon to strengthen supply chains. 
https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/minister/lreynolds/media-releases/joint-hackathon-planned-strengthen-sovereign-supply-chains 

This is to be run by the Australian Computer Society (ACS), starting 
this Friday. Australians and New Zealanders have been asked to 
contribute ideas to secure the logistics of our military, in the light 
of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as recent bushfires, earthquakes and 
floods. http://www.anzdfhack.org/


I have volunteered my experience working at Australian Defence Force 
Headquarters in the 1990s, developing national policy online as part of 
the Internet "Cabal", here on the Link List. ;-) 
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/CLCCommsUpd/1995/56.pdf


I've never got involved in any of these.  It's not lack of interest, or 
even scepticism, and certainly not opposition to the idea.


Glancing through the page, it's awfully (and probably expensively) 
glitzy, but it does actually include content!



But it doesn't address a key aspect I'm interested in understanding:

> ... shortlisted concepts will be offered inside pathways for further 
development and funding of their idea in Defence and Industry sectors

...
> What is the hackathons IP policy for submissions?
>
> Under development.

M.


There's a very long list of hackathons, e.g. here:
https://www.disruptorsco.com/big-list-hackathons/

Yet I can find nothing about IP, e.g. in the Wikipedia entry, or on the 
govhack.org site, or in the https://hackathon.guide.


Does this mean that hackathons so rarely deliver ideas worth pinching 
that defining terms relating to IP is irrelevant?


Put another way, is it primarily an active form of job application / 
body-shop?  For example, the promotion includes:
> Expose your talent to high profile defence collaborators and industry 
professionals who are looking for your help and contribution


Or does it mean that the business model depends on people coming along 
and gifting IP to sponsors?



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[LINK] Company Pays Up after Robot Breaches First Law

[Roger Clarke]

An interesting item appeared in SMH this morning, item here:
https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/compliance-and-prosecutions/enforceable-undertakings/2020-eu-accordion/inghams-enterprises-pty-limited

Inghams Enterprises Pty Limited

On 1 December 2016 a worker at the Ingham’s site located at Prestons, 
NSW, was working in the weigh label room stacking and adjusting pallets 
containing chicken products. The worker was injured as a result of being 
trapped by a [palletising robot] in a robotic cell.


[I've no idea what a 'robotic cell' is, nor why a worker was in it]

[Ingham's sacked the robot, i.e. removed it, forthwith.

Ingham's has undertaken to spend half-a-mill to develop a "safety 
incident reporting portal for Ingham’s WHSMS, specifically designed to 
address Ingham’s agri-business operations. Once developed this portal 
can be accessed via Ingham’s intranet, desktops and on workers’ mobile 
devices so the system can be can used by all workers, sub-contractors, 
and leaders who use the Ingham’s WHSMS onsite, in real-time, at the 
click of a button".


[I've no idea why it took 3-1/4 years from the accident to the signing 
of the undertaking by Ingham's and Safework NSW, but I guess it's progress.]


__

Alleged breach

Inghams Enterprises Pty Ltd contravened section 19(1) and 32 of the Work 
Health and Safety Act 2011.


Summary of undertaking

Activities Inghams Enterprises Pty Ltd will undertake include:

Development and Implementation of an electronic platform for a Work 
Health and Safety Management System designed for use in Ingham’s 
agri-business operations;
An initiative to share the learnings from the incident and the process 
for developing the electronic platform for the Work Health and Safety 
Management System with industry;
Development of a video to promote SafeWork NSW’s Participative 
Ergonomics for Manual Tasks (PErforM) Program; and
Partnering with a creative advertising organisation to develop a public 
awareness campaign regarding musculoskeletal disorders.

This undertaking has a total expenditure of $499,000.

Reasons for accepting the undertaking

The alleged contravention does not appear to be a section 31 Reckless 
conduct category 1 offence, which if it was the case, would preclude the 
proposed undertaking from being accepted
The nature of the alleged contravention and the actions taken by Inghams 
Enterprises Pty Ltd in response to the incident are assessed as being 
appropriate for consideration of an undertaking
The strategies proposed in the undertaking have been assessed as likely 
to deliver long term sustainable safety improvements in the workplace, 
industry and community
The undertaking addresses the requirements contained within the 
“Enforceable Undertakings – Guidelines for Proposing a WHS Undertaking”.

Date accepted

20 April 2020


Details here:
https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/821935/Inghams-Enterprises-Pty-Limited-signed-EU-Proposal_Redacted.pdf


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Re: [LINK] How Much Is a Human Life Actually Worth in Dollars?

[Roger Clarke]

On 12/5/20 10:23 am, Kim Holburn wrote:

https://www.wired.com/story/how-much-is-human-life-worth-in-dollars/


I remember the first time I saw one of those kinds of calcs.

Jack Brabham, on the cost of removing electricity posts from the sides 
of roads, divided by the number of lives lost each year.  Late 1960s?



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[LINK] itN: 'COVIDSafe code released, but developers unhappy'

[Roger Clarke]

. This software has been paid for 
by the Australian public, but it’s not open source and there’s no 
ability to contribute to it.”


QTE.am executive chair and software developer Jessica Glenn has also 
been analysing the COVIDSafe source code and shares concerns about the 
app not being properly open source.


“While the source code has been released for viewing, it is definitely 
not what would be considered ‘open source’. This distinction is 
important, it means that read access has been granted for people to view 
what is inside the code, but that there is no ability for community 
contribution or collaboration,” Ms Glenn told InnovationAus.


In releasing the code, the DTA did acknowledge it had received feedback 
on the app and potential issues to be resolved, and launched a new email 
address to facilitate more responses, supp...@covidsafe.gov.au.


“While we may be unable to reply to every individual who provides 
feedback, please know that your feedback will be reviewed and triaged 
depending on its impact on security and usability. In some instances, 
the DTA may contact you to gain a deeper understanding about the issues 
raised,” the DTA said.


The first update for COVIDSafe was rolled out last week, with another 
expected in the coming days.


The DTA is also working with Apple and Google and told a Senate hearing 
last week that it would be able to implement a fix for the issues the 
service is encountering on iPhones in the next fortnight.


The code released on Friday by the government reflects what many in tech 
community have already revealed about the COVIDSafe app through reverse 
engineering the Android version, and does only what the government said 
it would, Ms Glenn said.


“What we do know from the code that was released falls into line with 
what we were able to find, and what other independent researchers have 
backed up, when reverse engineering the apps over the last couple of 
weeks,” she said.


“The application is innocuous, and we haven’t been able to find any 
malicious code, or intentional overreach. Most of the issues of note are 
not about the technical implementation of the application.


“The largest issues with the roll-out of COVIDSafe are communications, 
both with the wider community and the tech community specifically. We 
have hopes that the communications plan will be improved iteratively.”




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Re: [LINK] COVIDSafe a few observations

[Roger Clarke]

All in all the government doesn't seem to be pushing people very hard
to download and use it [The App] or pinning its hopes on the thing.


On 9/5/20 9:09 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:

... Perhaps the government is feeling nervous after the NBN, RoboDebt, the
Census, the medical records initiative, penetration of Commonwealth systems
by foreign agents, and various IT project failures, not to mention widely known
problems with the App on iPhone.


On the other hand, and as promised, they have released the source code for
both of their versions fairly speedily here https://github.com/AU-COVIDSafe


"released ... fairly speedily"???

13 days after release, after 5m downloads and attempted installations???

It can be safely assumed that sanitisation has occurred before release.
No dead dogs, or dog-kicking apparatus, are likely to be found.

But they've given themselves time to obfuscate anything that they think 
prying eyes shouldn't see, and to do so in ways that make it difficult 
to confirm that obfuscation has been performed.


Frankly, I *wasn't* all that suspicious.  But 13 days?

___


And in typical Aussie GitHub fashion, no-one has yet found major problems:

For one example: in the Github Comments .. dgriffith 8 hours ago writes 

“So I skimmed it, and while I can see where it generates a UUID and stores that 
in it's log, and how it also logs other UIDs, I can't see where it keeps your 
mic open and kicks your dog and uploads your entire life history and precise 
GPS location to overseas servers. Are we sure this is the right version?”



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Re: [LINK] World Virtual Meeting of Mayors “No Return to Business as Usual”

[Roger Clarke]

the crisis – for example, workers who are now recognised as essential 
should be celebrated and compensated accordingly and policies must support 
people living in informal settlements;

+ The recovery must improve the resilience of our cities and communities. 
Therefore, investments should be made to protect against future threats – 
including the climate crisis – and to support those people impacted by climate 
and health risks;

+ Climate action can help accelerate economic recovery and enhance social 
equity, through the use of new technologies and the creation of new industries 
and new jobs. These will drive wider benefits for our residents, workers, 
students, businesses and visitors;

+ We commit to doing everything in our power and the power of our city 
governments to ensure that the recovery from COVID-19 is healthy, equitable and 
sustainable;

+ We commit to using our collective voices and individual actions to ensure 
that national governments support both cities and the investments needed in 
cities, to deliver an economic recovery that is healthy, equitable and 
sustainable;

+ We commit to using our collective voices and individual actions to ensure 
that international and regional institutions invest directly in cities to 
support a healthy, equitable and sustainable recovery.

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Re: [LINK] Question about the app: must location be turned on in order for Bluetooth to work?

[Roger Clarke]

On 4/5/20 10:29 pm, jw...@internode.on.net wrote:

I found it as a reprint in the Melbpc Update today. Here's the link
from The Conversation. The quote I shared is about 1/3 down the page.
https://theconversation.com/covidsafe-tracking-app-reviewed-the-government-delivers-on-data-security-but-other-issues-remain-137249


That's from Mon 27 April, 8 days ago, and seems to have been written 
prettymuch form the government announcement.


Given the time to get a paper into The Conversation, the author would 
have had no time to do any careful checking of device functionality.


It's no surprise that his first attempts to formulate an explanation of 
what did and didn't work were imprecise.  It's still not easy, in part 
because the government failed to disclose design documents, and has 
failed to fulfil its own undertaking to disclose source-code, forcing 
people to use reverse-engineering techniques.


There are better sources now, and the one fromn 27 April is best treated 
as ephemera / early warning.


Re privacy aspects as well, Graham Greenleaf has warned about a lot of 
very poor analysis in some of the many The Conversation pieces.


Their quality assurance appears to be pretty light-on.  The good 
articles are very good, but it's often necessary to check who wrote an 
article before depending on it.




- Original Message -
From: "Roger Clarke"
To:
Cc:
Sent:Mon, 4 May 2020 22:00:28 +1000
Subject:Re: [LINK] Question about the app: must location be turned on
in order for Bluetooth to work?

  On 4/5/20 5:41 pm, jw...@internode.on.net wrote:
  > I just read a CQU review of the App where the writer said:
  > "In regards to enabling location permissions, it’s important to
note
  > this isn’t the same as turning on-location services. Location
  > permissions must be enabled for COVIDSafe to access Bluetooth on
  > Androidand Apple devices."
  > So, despite the app not collecting location data, other apps that
  > would like it but you don't want them to will be?

  That sounds inaccurate. As in 'partly right, but not as written'.

  Can you point to the source?

  Most posters have been pretty careful and precise up until now.

  Misinformation from sceptics *as well as* enthusiasts won't help
anyone.

  --
  Roger Clarke mailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
  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 Professor in the Faculty of Law University of N.S.W.
  Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
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Re: [LINK] Question about the app: must location be turned on in order for Bluetooth to work?

[Roger Clarke]

On 4/5/20 5:41 pm, jw...@internode.on.net wrote:

  I just read a CQU review of the App where the writer said:
"In regards to enabling location permissions, it’s important to note
this isn’t the same as turning on-location services. Location
permissions must be enabled for COVIDSafe to access Bluetooth on
Androidand Apple devices."
So, despite the app not collecting location data, other apps that
would like it but you don't want them to will be?


That sounds inaccurate.  As in 'partly right, but not as written'.

Can you point to the source?

Most posters have been pretty careful and precise up until now.

Misinformation from sceptics *as well as* enthusiasts won't help anyone.


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Re: [LINK] Remote Telstra Subscribers Unable to Activate the COVIDSafe App

[Roger Clarke]

On 3/5/20 9:22 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
The ABC has reported that some without mobile phone coverage are unable 
to activate the COVIDSafe app. They can download the app via WiFi, but 
Telstra doesn't forward the conformation text message via WiFi to their 
subscribers, so the app is not activated. 
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-05-01/rural-residents-unable-to-use-covidsafe-app/12202772 


Damn, yet another one to add to the collection at 2.5:

  The Effectiveness of Bluetooth Proximity Apps
  in Tracing People with COVID-19 Exposure Risk
 https://rogerclarke.com/EC/EBPA.html#EF

But I guess it's a reasonable argument that most people without Telstra 
mobile phone coverage are very skilled at maintaining spatial 
separation, and hence most are in the lowest-priority target segments.


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[LINK] School in the Time of COVID-19

[Roger Clarke]

Torment in the Time of Scholara?

I have no idea of the provenance of this;  but it does capture the 
challenges being very abruptly faced by teachers and parents alike:


https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/emails-from-my-childrens-school-before-8-00-am-during-the-covid-19-crisis?fbclid=IwAR1ojMq3brXdh1-oLawg85Xo4kCV03DpDUu6vY_FMiR96Bt9xmmd2b5SYZU


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Re: [LINK] RFC: Does CovidSafe Actually Work?

[Roger Clarke]

On 29/4/20 12:56 pm, Roger Clarke wrote:

I'm sceptical.
I've flung together some preliminary notes, with a view to 
establishing what's known about the effectiveness of apps like this.
I'd appreciate feedback, pointers to sources, and pointers to people 
who are actively working on such questions.


On 29/4/20 3:46 pm, Hamish Moffatt replied:

In point 1 (3), you write:
/The Australian 'CovidSafe' app appears, as promised by the government, 
to store the data solely on the primary device. At least the model of 
each phone is transmitted and stored in cleartext, i.e. unencrypted./


The second part appears to be (a) irrelevant here and (b) incorrect. > The app 
has been observed to store all of its data in encrypted storage
on the phone.


Maybe I'm misinterpreting Culnan et al.'s statement:
https://github.com/vteague/contactTracing#user-content-the-sharing-and-plaintext-logging-by-other-users-of-the-exact-model-of-the-phone

> It is not true that all the data shared and stored by COVIDSafe is 
encrypted. It shares the phone's exact model in plaintext with other 
users, who store it alongside the corresponding Unique ID.


But the text continues:
> COVIDSafe records details about the messages it sends and receives, 
storing these in unencrypted form ...


and the Table cols. 6 and 7 display the phone-model.

Are you able to point me to the contrary evidence?

I wonder if there's a difference between the two (or more?) 
implementations, at least for iOS and Android, possibly for some OS 
versions and/or iPhone sub-models.



As to the false positive rate, I'm not convinced this is a problem in 
Australia. Right now we have such a low case rate and some state 
governments have announced a testing blitz, so some additional targeted 
testing seems quite reasonable.


Testing is a little inconvenient and unpleasant.  But my bigger concern 
is unjustified isolation, especially if test-results are slow or (more 
likely) ambiguous, requiring multiple re-tests, or policy-makers are too 
trigger-happy and regard one instance as evidence of a major relapse.


The inconvenience to the individuals is one factor, but the likelihood 
of media blow-ups and a loss of public support is a bigger issue.


But I'll have to think through what I really mean, because, like you, 
I've complained about the absence of:

-   targeted testing in high-incidence areas (e.g. Waverley),
to develop a picture of latent risks, and
-   random-sample-testing elsewhere, to learn about the progress,
or more likely lack thereof, towards herd immunity.


My rationale is that, if a vaccination proves elusive, which is a quite 
likely scenario, our options become:

-   many cycles of semi-lockdown as soon as each wave comes around; or
-   the development of herd immunity.

The talked-about immunity=50-70% may be reachable in Lombardia and NY. 
We're probably a long, long way from it;  but we don't actually know.


Thanks Hamish!



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[LINK] Anna Johnston's blog on the COVID-Safe App

[Roger Clarke]

Recommended:

Anna Johnston's blog on the COVID-Safe app is now up:
https://www.salingerprivacy.com.au/2020/04/29/covidsafe-app-blog/


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[LINK] CORRECTION: RFC: Does CovidSafe Actually Work?

[Roger Clarke]

Aaargh!  An ancient domain somehow crept in.

The correct URL is:
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/EBPA.html


 Forwarded Message 
Subject: RFC: Does CovidSafe Actually Work?
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:56:37 +1000
From: Roger Clarke 
To: link 

I'm sceptical.

I've flung together some preliminary notes, with a view to establishing 
what's known about the effectiveness of apps like this.


I'd appreciate feedback, pointers to sources, and pointers to people who 
are actively working on such questions.


Thanks!  ...  Roger


   The Effectiveness of Bluetooth Proximity Apps
   Preliminary Notes of 29 April 2020

  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/EBPA.html

 Abstract

Public health teams trace people who may have been exposed to a person 
infected with COVID-19. I'm a sceptic about the effectiveness of apps 
based on Bluetooth proximity data in supporting the efforts of those 
teams. These are preliminary and hastily-flung-together notes intended 
to frame the problem, and hence guide the search for evidence to support 
or debunk my scepticism.



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[LINK] RFC: Does CovidSafe Actually Work?

[Roger Clarke]

I'm sceptical.

I've flung together some preliminary notes, with a view to establishing 
what's known about the effectiveness of apps like this.


I'd appreciate feedback, pointers to sources, and pointers to people who 
are actively working on such questions.


Thanks!  ...  Roger


   The Effectiveness of Bluetooth Proximity Apps
   Preliminary Notes of 29 April 2020

  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/EBPA.html

 Abstract

Public health teams trace people who may have been exposed to a person 
infected with COVID-19. I'm a sceptic about the effectiveness of apps 
based on Bluetooth proximity data in supporting the efforts of those 
teams. These are preliminary and hastily-flung-together notes intended 
to frame the problem, and hence guide the search for evidence to support 
or debunk my scepticism.



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[LINK] Absence of evidence to support contact-tracing apps

[Roger Clarke]

and “social impacts” of 
an app outweigh the potential benefits and called on the government to 
be transparent about the solutions under development.


Privacy group medConfidential has also called on NHSX to be “upfront” 
about their plans for the app 
<https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/04/nhsx-must-be-upfront-about-contact-tracing-app-privacy-group-says/> 
and how it will be used.


An NHSX spokesperson said: “Users’ privacy is crucial, which is why we 
are working with other countries, a range of experts, stakeholders and 
industry to ensure the app under development is led by the best 
scientific and clinical advice to reduce transmission of the virus 
whilst protecting user privacy.”


*Key recommendations outlined in the letter:*

  * Contact tracing apps must only be used to support public health
measures for the containment of Covid-19
  * Any considered solution must be fully transparent. The protocols and
their implementations, including any sub-components provided by
companies, must be available for public analysis
  * When multiple possible options to implement a certain component or
functionality of the app exist, then the most privacy-preserving
option must be chosen
  * The use of contact tracing apps and the systems that support them
must be voluntary, used with the explicit consent of the user and
the systems must be designed to be able to be switched off, and all
data deleted, when the current crisis is over

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Re: [LINK] How will the coronavirus app work?

[Roger Clarke]

 the "icing on the cake" for an
already "well-oiled" tracing regime.

There is no data publicly available that shows how effective this will
be, though. While some tech business leaders have been positive about
the app, others have reservations.

UNSW epidemiologist professor Mary-Louise McLaws, who sits on a World
Health Organisation panel that advises on the preparedness, readiness
and response to coronavirus, says, during the process of contact
tracing, memory can fail patients distressed with a virus diagnosis.

"People who are probably very upset, potentially sick and anxious, have
to now try to recall everyone who they had any contact with – that can
be difficult when it's trying circumstances," Professor McLaws says.

The epidemiologist says there could be more use in shortening the
timeframe for contact recording to five or 10 minutes, rather than 15.

Professor Seebeck from the ANU Cyber Institute fears it may even slow
down contact tracing teams. "What proportion of cases that we already
know of fit within the 1.5 metre, 15-minute window? We're already told
we shouldn't shake hands – we don't shake hands for 15 minutes," she
says. "And [coronavirus] lingers on surfaces – that's not going to be
captured by the app."

The Cyber Institute chief executive says the app could generate a lot of
false positives, putting extra work on contact tracing teams who now
have to chase up more people.

There's no way of knowing if the app saves lives – or, using Prime
Minister Morrison's language, saves livelihoods – until we see it in action.

Will Professor Buckland download the app?

"If the situation got really bad," he says, "and this made a big
difference, I wouldn't think twice."

"But I would want to make sure there was assurance this was a temporary
thing, that there wasn't scope creep, and that I could opt out at any time."

Will Professor Seebeck? No.

"Not until I have trust in the government. And they've got to work on
it. It's up to the more powerful partner in the relationship to give
trust, it's not for them to demand it."

What about the epidemiologist, though?

"I wouldn't recommend anyone download the app," Professor McLaws says.
"We need to have wider community consultation - and have it done rapidly
- about how long the data is held for and who holds it, and then is it
removed completely and not used for secondary purposes."

"It would be reckless to roll something out."

Soon, it'll be up to you to decide.

--

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
email: b...@iimetro.com.au

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Re: [LINK] [EFA-Privacy] Victoria COVID decision modeling

[Roger Clarke]

hings look
like COVID changes; in a low-COVID prevalence environment like ours, it
would have a very poor negative predictive value) and because it has
limited availability and involves radiating people which is probably not
justified by how good a screening tool it is.   The maths for CT screening
would probably be quite different in say, New York where there is lots and
lots and lots of COVID, so the positive predictive value is probably pretty
good, even though the specificity of the test isn't that high.

Now I have to get back to work, so I'll leave it there.

Trent.


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Re: [LINK] [EFA-Privacy] Victoria COVID decision modeling

[Roger Clarke]

On 20/4/20 6:03 pm, jw...@internode.on.net wrote:
Just read on another discussion group. I can't recall if it was privacy 
or link list where models were discussed, so am sending to both for 
examination:

https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/theoretical-modelling-inform-victorias-response-coronavirus-covid-19


That points to the Doherty Institute paper of 7 Apr 2020.
It just uses a standard SEIR model, which is pretty limited in scope:
https://www.doherty.edu.au/news-events/news/covid-19-modelling-papers
https://www.doherty.edu.au/uploads/content_doc/McVernon_Modelling_COVID-19_07Apr1_with_appendix.pdf

I'm arguing that policy-makers need a lot more than that.

A broader state-transition model, plus some text is here:
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/CVM.pdf
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/CVMT.pdf
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/CVCT.pdf

This is a little off-topic for both lists, but I'd be delighted if 
anyone's prepared to offer sanity-checking or technical critique.


Thanks!

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Re: [LINK] The government's coronavirus modelling

[Roger Clarke]

On 10/4/20 11:21 am, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:

Here's a much more useful description (in the current circumstances) of
what's going on than any of Dr Jansson type models

The one COVID-19 number to watch
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-10/coronavirus-data-australia-growth-factor-covid-19/12132478


It's a great reductio ad absurdum.

Pity it's dated 10 April, rather than the morning of 1 April.

Like all simplistic single-data-item representations of complex 
real-world systems, it's so useless it's laughable.


They don't declare a model, just a formula:
"Calculating the daily growth factor is as simple as taking today’s new 
reported cases and dividing it by yesterday’s new cases"


And the model that's implicit in that formula is limited to daily 
snapshots of one small element of the Susceptible, Exposed, Infected, 
Recovered (SEIR) notion.  (They appear to mean by 'cases' something like 
'that subset of Infecteds that have been noticed and recorded').


And, as per my email of 08:57, even the SEIR notion is insufficiently 
complex to provide a basis for useful modelling;  so the Elvery et al. 
tiny sub-set of SEIR is just plain silly.


And that's only the *modelling* aspect of their proposal.  Even if the 
model made some kind of sense, the data it depends on is utter nonsense.


Editing a para. from my email of Fri, 3 Apr 2020 18:15:30 +1100:
> 'Case numbers' is a meaningless metric, because it's impossible to 
know what each day's count means, it adds apples and oranges, and none 
of it tells anyone anything useful.


Editing some text from my email of Fri, 3 Apr 2020 11:49:04 +1100:
> Countries have adopted very different approaches to recognising 
cases, and have changed their approach over time and space, sometimes 
frequently.

>
> Mostly, the sample of the population that is being tested at any 
given time is intentionally not random, but targeted.

>
> But the basis of the targeting (the sampling frame, and the manner in 
which the sample is selected from the sampling frame) is highly 
variable, and the execution of it is challenging and highly error-prone.

>
> One result is that within-country case-counts aren't comparable over 
even short periods, let alone the whole 4-8 weeks to date.

>
> A second result is that inter-country comparisons are completely 
meaningless, because the confounding variables dominate the data.



It suits the media to keep reporting numbers and dressing them up in 
graphics of various kinds.  And, to bolster the credibility of their 
graphics, they need to boost the mythology of modellers.  But the 
informational value of case statistics is at about the same level as the 
'what the celebrities did yesterday' pages.



Hopefully the policy-makers know all this, are ignoring the simpletons, 
are taking into account insights drawn from multiple partial models that 
deliver bits and pieces of insights into segments of the whole problem 
(Bernard's "multiple, interconnected models fed by real-life, current 
data"), and are making progressive and adaptable judgement calls based 
on what they have available to them at the time.



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Re: [LINK] 50 years of Teleworking Fantasies to COVID-19 Reality

[Roger Clarke]

On 8/4/20 9:21 am, Marghanita da Cruz wrote: 

... from Teleworking Fantasies to COVID-19 Reality ...


On 10/4/20 8:01 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
In my 1993 future history of Canberra *this year* it becomes the world 
capital, due to superior computing facilities: "Canberra 2020: World 
Information Capital", Informatics Magazine, September 1993: 
http://www.tomw.net.au/1993/cnbfut.html


I was a member then Chair of a Ministerial Advisory Committee that did 
what it could to keep that dream alive:

http://rogerclarke.com/II/ACS-OLSAG-Rpt-981112.doc

And here's another giggle from the visionary past:

> The economic arguments in support of a participative information 
infrastructure go beyond cost-replacement. The prototype of a 
democratic, participative information infrastructure, the Internet, 
represents an 'electronic playground'. Students in tertiary institutions 
make what some people regard as frivolous use of transmission capacity 
to file diatribes about matters of ephemeral significance to small 
groups of highly dispersed aficionados, to participate in multi-user 
games, to conduct opportunistic, poorly conceived and poorly managed 
searches, and to experiment with new ideas for services. Yet precisely 
these frivolous uses are providing these young people with the means to 
pursue ongoing self-education and discovery.

>
> 'Distance education' is becoming much more than just a means to 
attain geographical equity for far-flung populations; it will become a 
way of life for a workforce continually preparing itself for the next 
change in market demands. The foundations have been laid for our own 
ongoing 'cultural revolution' - a welling-up of new and revised ideas 
and artefacts.


> Exhibit 5: Indicative List of Information Services
>-   low tail-capacity requirements  [incl.]
>-   data transfer for working from home (telecommuting/teleworking)
>-   education services incl. remote classroom teaching (text-only)
>-   moderate tail-capacity requirements [incl.]
>-   multi-media mail, including video (i.e. asynchronous messaging)
>-   modest-quality video-telephone (i.e. synchronous conversations)
>-   video conferencing (including 'virtual meetings')
>-   education services, e.g. remote classroom teaching (incl video)

Clarke R. (1994)  'Information Infrastructure for The Networked Nation'
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, November 1994, at 
http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/NetNation.html



Shorter version in:

Clarke R. & Worthington T. (1994)  'Vision for a Networked Nation: The 
Public Interest in Network Services'  Proc. Conf. Int'l Telecomms Soc., 
Sydney, July 1994,

original lost at https://www.acs.org.au/president/1997/acsnet/acsnet.htm
but fortunately archived at 
https://web.archive.org/web/20120625011201/http://www.acs.org.au/president/1997/acsnet/acsnet.htm

and http://rogerclarke.com/II/ACS-VisionForANetworkedNation-1994.html

Tom, the ACS screwed up the publishing framework you established for it 
(c. 2000?).  They broke the link between 25 Jun 2012 and 2 Sep 2012.


__

Also right here on the Link List from 2012: "Use e-Learning to Teach 
Teleworking": 
http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2012-January/096038.html


And here is one I don't remember writing. Apparently it was Submission 
17 to the "Inquiry into the role and potential of the National Broadband 
Network":


 "4.99 Mr Worthington noted that the long term restructuring of the 
education systems towards a more efficient and effective ‘blended’ mode 
of education will require ‘retraining of teachers, restructuring of 
courses and the remodelling of buildings’ at a cost ‘far higher than for 
the implementation of the NBN itself’.[110]


 However, he also noted that due to the relative size of Australia’s 
expenditure on education, if the NBN can enable a 10 per cent reduction 
in the cost of education it would be enough to pay for the entire 
network within eight years.[111]"


 From House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure 
and Communications, August 2011 
http://www.aphref.aph.gov.au/house/committee/ic/NBN/report/1.%20Final%20NBN%20Report.pdf#page=112 



Closer to reality, last year I used a blended design in the "Learning 
Reflect" module for ANU TechLauncher computer project students. In the 
unlikely event an international crisis stopped students from getting to 
campus, the face-to-face components could easily be swapped out, making 
it fully online. This year, the unlikely crisis happened, and I just had 
to change a couple of sentences in the course to activate this option. 
If the students return next semester, I just have to swap the F2F bits 
back: 
https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/03/designing-in-on-line-learning-option.html 







--
Roger Clarke 

Re: [LINK] The government's coronavirus modelling

[Roger Clarke]

On 9/4/20 9:03 pm, David Boxall wrote:

A different perspective:

https://medium.com/@jamesjansson/covid-19-modelling-is-wrong-f7246e3dc396


It's an interesting piece of work.

But it embodies the same fundamental error as the approach that it's 
criticising.  He's saying:


'my modelling tool is better than your modelling tool'

But it's still 'applied science', and not 'instrumentalist' science.

Applied science is characterised by the old saw:

  'when you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail'

It's driven by the tools that the individual or group has to hand, and 
which they're used to working with.


Instrumentalist science instead addresses problems and seeks solutions.

So the first thing that's done is problem-analysis.  With the shape of 
the problem understood, tools can then be evaluated to see how well they 
fit the problem.


To be fair, properly-understood real-world problems are often more 
complex than any available tool can cope with.


And that's clearly the case with a pandemic - or even an epidemic within 
a single, moderately homogeneous and relatively independent environment.


But to start with a preferred tool and then conceive the problem within 
the constraints of that tool is to condemn the project to failure.


In this case, the Susceptible, Exposed, Infected, Recovered (SEIR) 
notion is patently inadequate, e.g.

-   Infected needs to be exploded into at least the levels of
{Asymptomatic, Symptomatic, Hospitalised, ICU'd, In Recovery}
-   New instances need to be able to be fed into intermediate states
(e.g. ailing crew flown in from the offshore vessels)
-   a heap (technical term) for the Dead seems to be missing entirely
-   Recovered fails to distinguish {With Strong Antibodies, Other}

I haven't done much deterministic simulation, nor Monte Carlo 
simulation, since the 1970s.


But if you don't clearly distinguish the start-point(s), the states, the 
transitions, and the end-point(s), and if you don't identify the 
attributes of each instance (age-range and relevant-prior-conditions, 
for example), and the postulated distributions of the variables, you're 
just playing games, not assisting decision-makers.



At the end, Jansson write:

> ... I would caution against relying too heavily on modelling ...

Well said, that man!

Modelling is a decision support tool, and has to be treated that way.


He continues:

> I do not fault the governments of the world acting decisively on the 
basis of the modelling provided so far or the actions taken. Fast action 
is an absolute necessity and interventions such as isolation can buy 
society time until we determine the best path forward.


Yep, agreed with that bit too.


Obiter dicta:

I suspect that the moderately effective rather than absolute isolation, 
with an emphasis on staying away from the old and infirm, was an 
effective means of greatly reducing the death-toll, while allowing 
steady build-up towards herd-immunity - which I suspect is likely to be 
achieved before an immunisation option is available.


I also think they set the 'scare-tactics' at about the right decibels - 
to 'alert' people's thoughts and actions, but keep the 'alarm' factor 
under control.


And, to the credit of the people responsible for this in Australia, 
they've shown some adaptation to new information and alternative modelling.


And now we want them to exercise just as effective judgement during the 
peak (this week) and the wind-down phases (starting late this week, but 
very gently, slowly and steadily).


Hopefully the current break-out by the Laura Norder monsters, seeking 
heaps more surveillance and social control powers and resources while 
they can still use the virus as a pretext, will be a short phase that 
won't provide Dutton and his ilk any more scope to undermine democracy.



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Re: [LINK] The government's coronavirus modelling

[Roger Clarke]

> On Tue, 2020-04-07 at 18:10 +1000, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>> I can't believe they have been making decisions on the modelling they
>> released today. They may be cunning but they are not stupid.
>> IMHO, the big questions are "What is ScoMo hiding and why?"

On 7/4/20 6:59 pm, Karl Auer wrote:
> ... I think they are genuinely concerned that if they told people how 
big this thing is and how bad it could get, they would have a panic on 
their hands.


Other people's guesses might be that:

(1) there are multiple models, and they paint quite different pictures

(2) the model(s) deliver very different pictures, depending on the
nature of the data they're fed with.  That can reflect inadequate
models (e.g. missing variables), or inadequate data (e.g. things
not measured that - with 20-20 hindsight - needed to be measured,
data defined one way but data collected in another, data definitions
that changed over time resulting in incompatibilities, data that
no-one ever thought to define that means whatever the collecter
decided on an ad hoc basis it presumably was intended to mean,
data that was of low quality when it was collected, ...)

(3) the model(s) deliver pictures that aren't consistent with what's
been portrayed to the public

If the problem is (1) multiple models, that's normal science, especially 
in a complex, even wicked problem-space.  Try telling the punters that.


If the problem is (2) dubious-quality and/or inconsistent data, it's a 
question of sensitivity of dependent variables to differences in the 
independent variables.  London to a brick, this one's in play.


If the problem is (3) inconsistencies, it could indeed be that 'humanity 
was facing extinction'.  Or 'it wasn't so bad as to justify the measures 
that were taken'.  Given that it's been portrayed as 'pretty grim', the 
second of those alternatives is entirely tenable.


I don't want to sound unduly critical of the modellers, the data 
collectors, the data analysts, the public health tsars, or even the 
politicians.


This is all really, really challenging.

People confuse people-made models with real-world systems, and are 
encouraged to do so.  (Run a critical eye over weather forecasts).


A model is a simplified representation of some part of the real world.

When we find models that are pretty reliable, we justifiably celebrate.

But it's far, far rarer than the marketers (of all descriptions) want 
people to believe.





On 7/4/20 6:59 pm, Karl Auer wrote:


Two things. First off, they ARE stupid. They have demonstrated the
depths of their stupidity over and over and over again (CensusFail,
water rights, climate change denial, electricity privatisation, phone
privatisation, NBN, RoboDebt - the list is practically endless.

In this case, I don't think malice is behind it. I think they are
genuinely concerned that if they told people how big this thing is and
how bad it could get, they would have a panic on their hands. They
don't know how to release it and are terrified that if they do it will
show they should have done more, better, faster.

It's paternalistic and, of course, stupid. It's stupid because the
modelling WILL be leaked.

Regards, K.



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Re: [LINK] "Mobile phone location data used to track Australians' movements during coronavirus crisis"

[Roger Clarke]

On 5/4/20 9:41 am, Christian Heinrich wrote:

https://www.smh.com.au/technology/mobile-phone-location-data-used-to-track-australians-movements-during-coronavirus-crisis-20200404-p54h09.html


Interestingly, Google's data seems on the surface to be somewhat 
different from Vodafone's.  Although it's highly aggregated.


Google location data shows Australia grinding to halt
Juha Saarinen
itNews
Apr 4 2020
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/google-location-data-shows-australia-grinding-to-halt-546023

Home-page:  https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/
Australia:
https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-03-29_AU_Mobility_Report_en.pdf

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Re: [LINK] "Mobile phone location data used to track Australians' movements during coronavirus crisis"

[Roger Clarke]

On 5/4/20 9:41 am, Christian Heinrich wrote:

https://www.smh.com.au/technology/mobile-phone-location-data-used-to-track-australians-movements-during-coronavirus-crisis-20200404-p54h09.html


My comments on the privacy list were as follows:

[The two diagrams show the degree of compliance that's been achieved 
with the governments' urgings for spatial isolation and reduced movement.


[It's a bit chilling how successful it's been in Australia:
https://e.infogr.am/sydney-movement-citymapper-1h8n6mz8x9pv2xo?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au%2Ftechnology%2Fmobile-phone-location-data-used-to-track-australians-movements-during-coronavirus-crisis-20200404-p54h09.html=embed#async_embed 



[But it's been achieved in Australia by 'moral suasion', with very 
measured use of authoritarian speech, and even more carefully measured 
use of authoritarian action.


[So far, despite my degree of scepticism about several aspects of the 
nature of the epidemic, touch wood, Australia and its government has 
behaved in an eminently civilised manner.]



[The Vodafone move is above all a corporate strategic PR play, to get 
its name in front of the Australian public in a positive way.  It's been 
done a sufficiently long time after the last really bad news about 
Vodafone that it could well help reverse the company's fortunes.


[The privacy negatives arising from the data disclosure appear to be 
pretty limited - although, as always, the devil's in the detail that the 
public isn't being told.


[The privacy negatives arising from the possession by Vodafone, Optus 
and Telstra of the underlying, identified data are vast.


[Totalitarian governments, and wannabes like Dutton and the 
shaven-headed brigade in a range of Canberra agencies, are salivating at 
the prospect of normalising the expropriation and exploitation of such 
data.


[So this reminds us all how fragile democracies already are.  And how 
quickly the moves will be by future Hitlers / Lenins-Stalins / Pol Pots 
/ PRC supremos / Saudi, Central Asian and African dictators / etc.]



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Re: [LINK] Jitsi in the time of COVID-19

[Roger Clarke]

G'day Marghanita, all

Responding only to this bit:

On 4/4/20 2:59 pm, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:

Roger, I would love to hear your thoughts on privacy in this new world
of videos links by whatever means works.


The insecurity features, such as the capability to sneak harmful links 
into chat sessions in Zoom, are small beer compared with the big issues, 
all of which are of long standing.


It's a long time since I've thought about this particular pickle, but 
some quick thoughts are:


(1)  Indefinite Login

Many service-providers force you to login.

Many make it non-obvious that you're logged in, and make it hard to 
logout, resulting in many people remaining unwittingly logged in for 
long periods, in many cases indefinitely.


Some service-providers take advantage of that to gather more data, on an 
ongoing basis.


(2)  Remote Webcam Operation

I haven't checked on this in recent years, but it was at one stage far 
too easy for software developers to get access to the on/off switch.


(3)  Indefinite Webcam Operation

Even if the device provides visual notification that the camera is 
oeprational, and the developer hasn't found a way to subvert that 
feature, only a small proportion of users notice it and appreciate what 
it means.  And even fewer know how to turn the camera off.


(4)  Indefinite Audio Operation

Audio may in some cases be implied by Video operation, and even where 
it's separately controlled, developers may have access to the levers.


(5)  Non-Granular Permissions / Bundled Consent

Many applications and services are take-it-or-leave-it offers.
'Yes, I'd like to have access to ' 
may well, according to the semi-hidden Terms of Service, mean 'Yes, do 
what you like with my machine', including turning on video and audio.



I've *not* done any reviews of the current status of camera and mike 
controls, access to them, etc.  But the trustworthiness of 
service-providers has got worse over time, so assume that your 
service-provider is using every vulnerability they can find.



[Declaration:  I use Zoom, and have for some time, for two Boards I'm 
on, and I'm experimenting with it as a capture tool for lectures and 
slides.  (It's not looking too good for that purpose though).


[Sometimes I click into and out of a meeting as guest, and I generally 
operate with my camera off, and audio muted except when needed.  When I 
operate from my account, I login when I need it, and logout when I'm 
finished.  All use of IT is a risk-management exercise.


[In business contexts, I regard video as a 90% waste of bandwidth.  I 
took part in my first video-conference in 1972, my next in the early 
1990s, and sporadically thereafter.  I agree that a brief video-session 
prior to a meeting starting can be valuable, both when there are people 
you know, and when there are people you don't (but for different 
reasons).  Thereafter the information-content of the screen is almost 
zero, and continuing in audio-tele-conference mode is fine.


[Grandparental use is a different 'value-proposition', of course.]


Why I cover my iPhone and laptop camera and why you should too
Ben Grubb
December 20, 2013
https://www.theage.com.au/technology/why-i-cover-my-iphone-and-laptop-camera-and-why-you-should-too-20131220-2zp59.html



On 4/4/20 2:59 pm, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:

Hi All,

just to elaborate - because my laptop was closed with an external 
monitor no picture was recorded or transmitted.


A warning - video conferencing is  real issue with accidentally leaving 
microphones and cameras on. I was just checking out the software - 
didn't expect to end up in a chat!


It turned out we were both there because of interest in open source 
software and video...http://ramin.com.au/linux/


Same would apply to facetime, skype and zoom.

Roger, I would love to hear your thoughts on privacy in this new world 
of videos links by whatever means works.



M

On 4/4/20 12:57 pm, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
Following up on Glen's recommendation of open source Jitsi, I came 
across *https://meet.jit.si/*


*Entering "Chat" I had a brief conversation with someone in 
Scotland... luckily had my laptop closed at the time.*


*M
*




--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
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Re: [LINK] OT: The Quality of Reporting on "COVID-19-Linked" Deaths

[Roger Clarke]

On 2020-04-03 18:15, Roger Clarke wrote:

Best demo yet of 100% image and 0% substance.
'Case numbers' is a meaningless metric, because it's impossible to know what 
each of the at least 40 data-elements means, it adds apples and oranges, and 
none of it tells anyone anything useful.


On 3/4/20 9:38 pm, David Lochrin wrote:

What "40 data-elements" do you have in mind?  I presume "case-numbers" refers 
to the number of cases indicated by a specific diagnostic test or, at very least, a set of symptoms 
indicative of CV with high probability.


Country y is deemed to have  cases on date y.

A more careful estimate on watching it run again is:
-43 days on the x-axis times
-10 countries on the y-axis
=   430 data-elements (alright, maybe an 'element' is 3 micro-elements)

It agree it would be a lot better if the criterion underlying each 
 were "indicated by a specific diagnostic test", rather than 
'whatever the reporting agent said'.


And "a set of symptoms indicative of CV with high probability" would be 
a really good way to do it.


But unfortunately that's not what those  signify.



Metrics that can assist in public health decisions:
-   Deaths



On the other hand, number of deaths is rather imprecise unless it's qualified 
by age and the existence of predisposing conditions.


I qualified that with:
> -   Death counts normalised by population and normal death rates

But agreed:  an age-distribution and something like 'predisposing 
conditions' would be highly valuable.


I've seen mentions of 'chronic conditions' as the issue.

But something like arthritis would seem to be far less important than, 
say, emphesema.  And an acute condition in the lungs probably matters 
more than a chronic condition of the hip.  So maybe 'predisposing 
conditions' (or 'relevant conditions') rather than than 'chronic'.


I reckon that, by the time herd immunity's been achieved, we'll have 
worked out what we need to know.


Isn't it good that God / gods / mother nature / the universe has still 
got humanity baffled.



--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 


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Re: [LINK] OT: The Quality of Reporting on "COVID-19-Linked" Deaths

[Roger Clarke]

On 3/4/20 5:12 pm, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:

This is a stunning dynamic graphic.
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1756015/?utm_source=showcase_campaign=visualisation/1756015


Best demo yet of 100% image and 0% substance.

'Case numbers' is a meaningless metric, because it's impossible to know 
what each of the at least 40 data-elements means, it adds apples and 
oranges, and none of it tells anyone anything useful.


Metrics that can assist in public health decisions:
-   Deaths
-   Death counts normalised by population and normal death rates
-   ICU admissions, and successful and unsuccessful discharges
-   Hospital admissions, and successful and unsuccessful discharges
-   Proportions of specific at-risk populations tested
-   Results of tests on random samples (to assess herd immunity)

--
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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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] OT: The Quality of Reporting on "COVID-19-Linked" Deaths

[Roger Clarke]

On 3/4/20 12:22 pm, Kate Lance wrote:

The most complete stats I have seen are at:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
They give you per capita cases & deaths, and if you click on a country there
are very detailed graphs.


Nice thanks Kate.

Now, if that was a wiki, someone could fork an extended table with an 
additional column, showing:

-   Normal Death-Rate, but expressed as p.mo. per million
(= the usual p.a. per '000 divided by 12 and multiplied by 1,000)

>> Spain  9.1 becomes 758 Normal in 1mth cf. 221 CV-linked deaths so far
>> Italy 10.4 becomes 866cf. 230
>> UK 9.4 becomes 783cf.  43

(Simplifying assumption:  all countries' CV epidemics started 1 mth ago, 
cf. FT's useful first graph)




The timeline of cases at https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest is also
illuminating.


Unfortunately, as is so often the case, a lot of the presentation 
graphics (image) are better then the data analysis (content).


And, after getting the (moderately useless) 'cases' counts out of the 
way, they also don't do any normalisation of death-counts against 
population and normal death-rates.




For example, populations in countries that are less prone to
hysteria, such as Germanic northern Europe, evidence very low rates in
comparison with warm-blooded, Mediterranean countries.


I think this point is simply a national stereotype. Check out death rates in
say, Norway (lockdown) compared to Sweden (no lockdown). Or disastrous Britain
(minimal testing) - all northern countries. The Germans are doing something
very right, probably their massive levels of testing. The Vietnamese
(tropical) are also doing very well.


As a (still) Brit passport-holder, I wouldn't classify the UK as 
Germanic (the royal family, minus the corgis, excepted, of course).


Poland 2, Norway 9, Germany 13, Austria 18, Denmark 21, Sweden 30 ...

... UK 43, Switzerland 62 (but Ticino?), Netherlands 78, Belgium 87 ...

... Greece 5, Portugal 20, France 83, Spain 221, Italy 230

I also plead my other qualifier:   "**It may be** that a 
'fear-of-the-virus' anxiety factor has exacerbated death rates ...".




And your point 4 is purely anecdotal.  I'd be curious to see what country in
Europe doesn't have a lot of cross-border nationals working in health.


The key factor is the proportion of them who upped stakes and left.

My point about the hysteria factor was that in northern Italy there was 
a very early and strong declaration about imminent cataclysm and 
border-closing, whereas many other countries moved more steadily and 
progressively.


(I've been impressed that the public health specialists were to the fore 
early on in Australia, and spent a lot of time 'bringing the public with 
them'.  Since the pollies re-asserted their dominance, they've 
occasionally become rambunctious.  But even they have mostly kept within 
bounds, and thereby achieved a reasonable level of compliance, and 
avoided any serious public opposition such as demos in the streets, 
heated arguments with policemen doing their jobs, riots, looting, and 
suchlike forms of societal breakdown).


___


On Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 10:01:35AM +1100, Roger Clarke wrote:

Ruminations on a Friday morning ...

The sports results and tables have been replaced by coronavirus (CV)
infection-counts and death-counts.  And the media declares raw numbers,
without providing any context to them.

This morning's ABC News says that yesterday's 'CV{-linked}' death-toll was:

Italy   760
UK  559
Spain   800

To get some perspective, that needs moderation by two key variables: the
countries' poulations and their normal death-rates.

Death-rates are quoted as number per thousand of population p.a.

So Normal Deaths per Day = (Population/1000 * Death-Rate p.a.) / 365

I haven't been able to quickly locate indicators of the degree of
variability of deaths per day around the averages shown above, but there
could be wide variability.  In particular, winter in some countries is
likely to have higher rates than less-cold times of year.

It's not possible with current information to relate CV-caused deaths to
normal death-rates.  As a proxy measure, I've shown below the ratio of
deaths yesterday compared with average daily deaths, as a percentage:

Country Population  Death-Rate  Deaths per Day  CV Deaths Y'day  %age

Spain   46m 9.1 1146 800  69
Italy   60m10.4 1709 760  44
UK  67m 9.4 1725 559  32


A number of potentially important factors muddy the water:

1.  Generally, reports fail to distinguish:
a.  deaths where CV appears to be the only significant factor
b.  deaths where CV was a significant factor, although not the only one
c.  deaths where CV may have been a factor (e.g. diagnosed with the
 virus, but nature of death not consistent with CV-caused deaths)

Re: [LINK] OT: The Quality of Reporting on "COVID-19-Linked" Deaths

[Roger Clarke]

On 3/4/20 10:41 am, jw...@internode.on.net wrote:

Here's a Fact Check article that also explores how the data is
presented and compared.League tables are always misleading or at least
can easily be misinterpreted.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-03/fact-file-are-we-turning-coronavirus-corner-flatten-the-curv/12113410


Thanks Jan.  But unfortunately the article's very muddy on deaths and 
death-rates (in the section that starts 40% of the way down the page).


The graph's use of colour, and the inclusion of a legend that has an 
unclear relationship with the lines, makes it almost unreadable.


And this buys into one of the most silly aspects of the entire 
pseudo-statistical mess:
>There is a second type of death rate. This is sometimes referred to as 
the "case fatality rate".
>This tells us the number of people who are dying as a proportion of 
confirmed cases.


Let's leave aside the issue of uncertain and probably variable 
test-reliability (as measured by false-positive and false-negative 
proportions).


Countries have adopted very different approaches to testing, and have 
changed their approach over time and space, sometimes frequently.


In most cases, the sample of the population that is being tested at any 
given time is intentionally not random, but targeted.


But the basis of the targeting (the sampling frame, and the manner in 
which the sample is selected from the sampling frame) is highly 
variable, and the execution if it is challenging and highly error-prone.


One result is that within-country counts aren't comparable over even 
short periods, let alone the whole 4-8 weeks to date.


A second result is that inter-country comparisons are completely 
meaningless, because the confounding variables dominate the data.


The article's right to say that "the case fatality rate is not the same 
as an actual mortality rate", and "countries with limited levels of 
testing might appear to have higher mortality rates — particularly if 
that limited testing is being restricted to those patients with more 
severe symptoms".


But it fails to say what matters, which is that "the case fatality rate 
is pseudo-data, shouldn't be reported, should certainly not be compared 
between countries, and is useless as a basis for any kind of 
decision-making".


What's needed is clarity about causes-of-death, and about what that 
tells us can be done for those in danger.


Availability of breathing support?  Probably above all, availability of 
quality medical and nursing staff in appropriate hospital facilities.


But maybe also a severe hosing-down of the alarmism projected by 
politicians, some health policy people, and the media.




----- Original Message -
From: "Roger Clarke"
To:"link"
Cc:
Sent:Fri, 3 Apr 2020 10:01:35 +1100
Subject:[LINK] OT: The Quality of Reporting on "COVID-19-Linked"
Deaths

  Ruminations on a Friday morning ...

  The sports results and tables have been replaced by coronavirus (CV)
  infection-counts and death-counts. And the media declares raw
numbers,
  without providing any context to them.

  This morning's ABC News says that yesterday's 'CV{-linked}'
death-toll was:

  Italy 760
  UK 559
  Spain 800

  To get some perspective, that needs moderation by two key variables:
the
  countries' poulations and their normal death-rates.

  Death-rates are quoted as number per thousand of population p.a.

  So Normal Deaths per Day = (Population/1000 * Death-Rate p.a.) / 365

  I haven't been able to quickly locate indicators of the degree of
  variability of deaths per day around the averages shown above, but
there
  could be wide variability. In particular, winter in some countries is

  likely to have higher rates than less-cold times of year.

  It's not possible with current information to relate CV-caused deaths
to
  normal death-rates. As a proxy measure, I've shown below the ratio of

  deaths yesterday compared with average daily deaths, as a percentage:

  Country Population Death-Rate Deaths per Day CV Deaths Y'day %age

  Spain 46m 91 1146 800 69
  Italy 60m 10.4 1709 760 44
  UK 67m 9.4 1725 559 32

  A number of potentially important factors muddy the water:

  1. Generally, reports fail to distinguish:
  a. deaths where CV appears to be the only significant factor
  b. deaths where CV was a significant factor, although not the only
one
  c. deaths where CV may have been a factor (e.g. diagnosed with the
  virus, but nature of death not consistent with CV-caused deaths)
  d. deaths where CV was present but unlikely to have been a factor

  The term 'excess deaths' or 'excess mortality' indicates a+b. In
  German, the word is 'Ueberstirblichkeit', as per:
  https://swprs.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/mortalitc3a4t-schweiz.png

  This suggests that Switzerland is experiencing a 'normal'
  late-winter-flu peak in deaths among over-65s.

  It may be that there is a great deal of over-reporti

[LINK] OT: The Quality of Reporting on "COVID-19-Linked" Deaths

[Roger Clarke]

Ruminations on a Friday morning ...

The sports results and tables have been replaced by coronavirus (CV) 
infection-counts and death-counts.  And the media declares raw numbers, 
without providing any context to them.


This morning's ABC News says that yesterday's 'CV{-linked}' death-toll was:

Italy   760
UK  559
Spain   800

To get some perspective, that needs moderation by two key variables: the 
countries' poulations and their normal death-rates.


Death-rates are quoted as number per thousand of population p.a.

So Normal Deaths per Day = (Population/1000 * Death-Rate p.a.) / 365

I haven't been able to quickly locate indicators of the degree of 
variability of deaths per day around the averages shown above, but there 
could be wide variability.  In particular, winter in some countries is 
likely to have higher rates than less-cold times of year.


It's not possible with current information to relate CV-caused deaths to 
normal death-rates.  As a proxy measure, I've shown below the ratio of 
deaths yesterday compared with average daily deaths, as a percentage:


Country Population  Death-Rate  Deaths per Day  CV Deaths Y'day  %age

Spain   46m 9.1 1146 800  69
Italy   60m10.4 1709 760  44
UK  67m 9.4 1725 559  32


A number of potentially important factors muddy the water:

1.  Generally, reports fail to distinguish:
a.  deaths where CV appears to be the only significant factor
b.  deaths where CV was a significant factor, although not the only one
c.  deaths where CV may have been a factor (e.g. diagnosed with the
virus, but nature of death not consistent with CV-caused deaths)
d.  deaths where CV was present but unlikely to have been a factor

The term 'excess deaths' or 'excess mortality' indicates a+b.  In 
German, the word is 'Ueberstirblichkeit', as per:

https://swprs.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/mortalitc3a4t-schweiz.png

This suggests that Switzerland is experiencing a 'normal' 
late-winter-flu peak in deaths among over-65s.


It may be that there is a great deal of over-reporting due to the 
inclusion of c. and d. in the numbers appearing in the media.  Quoting 
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/, "[It may be that] all 
test-positive deaths are assumed to be additional deaths".


2.  It may be that a 'fear-of-the-virus' anxiety factor has exacerbated 
death rates, and even resulted in deaths of individuals who are not 
infected.  For example, populations in countries that are less prone to 
hysteria, such as Germanic northern Europe, evidence very low rates in 
comparison with warm-blooded, Mediterranean countries.


3.  A variety of reports suggest a very large proportion of deaths has 
been, throughout, among those over 70 (90%), and a large proportion had 
prior conditions that were life-threatening or could readily become 
life-threatening (80%).


But, apart from a number of specific instances (Wuhan, Iran?, the 
upper-mid Po Valley, parts of Spain, UK, US), it appears that even 
deaths among the over-70s may be within the normal statistical range.


4.  It appears that in both Italy and Spain, many hospitals and 
aged-care facilities lost a large proportion of their staff, in many 
cases early in the epidemic.  That's because staff from Eastern European 
countries were terrified by panic-ridden reporting and fled home, and 
large numbers of local staff tested positive and were isolated at home. 
This may have resulted in many saveable patients going untreated and 
becoming casualties of the epidemic.



--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] RFC: Are 2m adult Australians locked out of online services?

[Roger Clarke]

As a non-mobile-phone user, I'm astonished how many organisations are 
completely unprepared for non-mobile-phone users, and completely 
uninterested in providing services to them.


I'm particularly concerned about services that require two-factor 
authentication, and support SMS as the only means of doing so.


A quick check of some readily-available stats suggests that this may 
appear to affect *a small proportion* of the population;  but that may 
represent *substantial numbers* of people.


I'd appreciate a sanity check of the brisk 15-minute analysis below.


In Dec 2018, Deloittes reported:
https://www.consultancy.com.au/news/616/9-out-of-10-australian-citizens-now-own-a-smartphone
> 89% of 2,000 Australians surveyed now own a smartphone, up from 88% 
in 2017 and 84% in 2016.


In Jul 2019, Roy Morgan reported:
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8032-mobile-phone-trends-march-2019-201907010451
> the vast majority of Australians (89.9%) own a mobile phone. This is 
up 0.7% points on a year ago and up 2.1% points from two years ago.



Note that there's a difference between 'mobile phone' and 'smartphone'.

And those reports don't contain the following important info:

(1)  what's the definition of 'Australians'?

 It probably means 'people who we reached'.  But that's unhelpful.
 We need to know the sampling frame, so that we can work out
 who's included and who's excluded and how reliable the statistic is

(2)  what proportion of respondents without a smartphone have access
 to a large sub-set of smartphone services by means of a tablet?

(3)  what proportion of respondents without a smartphone have access
 to a *small* sub-set of smartphone services by means of what
 Deloittes call a 'standard mobile phone'?


Ownership of smartphones appears to be asymptoting to c.91%.

If we assume that 'Australians' means 'all persons present in Australia 
at any given time and who are 18 or older and not institutionalised' ...


... then most of 9-10% of the population may not be able to use services 
that (a) require second-factor authentication and (b) only support SMS.


That includes Internet Banking services with quite a few of the banks. 
Some of those support login, but constrain such customers to very low 
daily payment-amounts when using Internet Banking.


Let's assume the relevant population is 20m (80% of 25m).

Applying 9-10% to 20m ...

... up to 1.8-2m Australians are locked out of SMS-based authentication

A great many of those may fall into categories who are not well-educated 
in commercial matters, living in remote areas, socio-economically 
disadvantaged, etc.



(A separate analysis is needed of contingent lock-out from services. 
Lots of people run out of battery.  And there are many locations, and 
many circumstances, in which SMS-capable handhelds are unable to receive 
an SMS;  and, in a reasonable proportion of those locations and 
circumstances, the user may have Internet access from a desktop or 
laptop via cable, fixed-wireless or satellite).



--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 


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Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] Just as everyone's hopping onto Zoom ...

[Roger Clarke]

Zoom for Windows leaks network credentials, runs code remotely
Careful clicking on links starting with \\ in Zoom.
Juha Saarinen
itNews
Apr 1 2020
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/zoom-for-windows-leaks-network-credentials-runs-code-remotely-545883

--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] Yet another triple-recycled AI Pseudo-Breakthrough

[Roger Clarke]

I've clipped in an article from today, headed:
> CBA runs AI over 230,000 words of ASIC regulation
> Australian trial follows similar work in the UK in early 2018.

[That fails to mention multiple working products c. 1990, and c.2000, 
incl. SoftLaw in Canberra.  An email below notes a 2008 recycle.


[I'm reliably informed that Softlaw did *not* parse legislation and turn 
it into code.  The coding depended on inspection and invention by 
skilled people with background in all of law, logic and the composition 
of logical expressions.


[But neither does the 2020 mirageware 'parse legislation and turn it 
into code'.


[The opening para. claims that the new software:
"**helps the bank parse** complex financial regulations and determine 
how best to meet them" (emphasis added).


[And even that's over-claiming.  Elsewhere it says its function is:
"to quickly **identify items in the regulation that could be reviewed 
and actioned** ..." (emphasis added).


[IOW, it's an at best marginal advance on the string-searching tools 
available since the mid-1960s, including to Softlaw 25 years ago.


[AI maintains its long track-record of re-inventing the same thing every 
decade or so, and seldom with much improvement (beyond running on faster 
processors and hence making mistakes more quickly).


[Sorry this isn't expressed in more jolly text;  but Prof. Clerphell 
wasn't readily available when I needed him to exercise his skills.]



CBA runs AI over 230,000 words of ASIC regulation
Australian trial follows similar work in the UK in early 2018.
Ry Crozier
itNews
Mar 23 2020
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/cba-runs-ai-over-23-words-of-asic-regulation-539687

CBA has run Australian trials of an artificial intelligence tool first 
piloted in the UK to help the bank parse complex financial regulations 
and determine how best to meet them.


The bank revealed the Australian proof-of-concept in a response to a 
senate inquiry into fintech and regtech last week.


"[We conducted] a recent proof of concept ... to understand how we could 
digitise our end-to-end regulatory change detection and management 
processes using an integration between Ascent and the bank’s risk 
management platform,” CBA said.


“The project, completed in partnership with CBA’s risk platform 
provider, IBM, involved over 230,000 words of regulation interpreted and 
converted into a series of bite-size, actionable tasks appropriate for 
the bank, using artificial intelligence and natural language processing.


“[The Australian Securities and Investments Commission] ASIC 
participated as an observer in the project."


iTnews has confirmed it is the same regtech that CBA first trialled in 
the UK in early 2018.


There, CBA used the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID 
II) regulation “as a test case”, running natural language processing 
(NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms over 1.5 million 
paragraphs of text “to quickly identify items in the regulation that 
could be reviewed and actioned, saving hundreds of hours of manual 
processing.”


A CBA spokesperson told iTnews that the bank had now run the same 
technology over “two pieces of ASIC legislation”.


“The first was the National Credit Consumer Protection Act, [and] the 
second was ASIC’s Corporations Act,” the spokesperson said.


“These Acts comprised over 230,000-plus words, which Ascent’s artificial 
intelligence and natural language processing capabilities were able to 
ingest, decompose, analyse and convert into bite-size, actionable tasks 
that pertain to processes, policies, systems and reporting for the bank 
within five-and-a-half days from start to finish.”


IBM, which supplies CBA’s governance, risk and compliance platform, were 
a partner to the local proof-of-concept, “co-developing an API with 
Ascent to have data from Ascent’s platform flow into a test instance of 
our governance, risk and compliance platform,” CBA said.


Earlier this month, the bank was named ‘innovator of the year’ by the 
Regtech Association of Australia.


“Our risk and technology teams have been working collaboratively with 
our regtech industry partners to test ways we can use technology to 
deliver better risk, compliance and customer outcomes and they can’t 
wait to take their ideas to the next level,” the bank’s spokesperson said.




 Forwarded Message 
Subject: Re: [LINK] Centrelink relies on artificial intelligence
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:21:21 +1000
From: Roger Clarke 
To: Link 

At 17:03 +1000 25/8/08, David Boxall wrote:
>>  Centrelink is using natural language-based artificial intelligence 
to ensure people get the financial benefits to which they are entitled.
>>  The intelligence forms the backbone of a business rules and 
compliance software engine created by Aussie developer, Haley.


Haley's predecessor, SoftLaw was doing this right through the 1990s.

For example, a 2-minute Google fo

[LINK] Are Euro Networks more strained than NBN's?

[Roger Clarke]

[Aside:  It's nice that the Australian government has taken (in)action 
to avoid video-derived congestion of Oz Internet infrastructure.


[By failing to provide a Medicare code for tele-health consultations, 
and hence making individuals pay for them personally, and in full, 
they've greatly reduced demand.]



From an itNews article this morning:
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/youtube-amazon-prime-forgo-streaming-quality-to-relieve-european-networks-539673

YouTube and Amazon Prime will sacrifice streaming quality in the EU to 
help avert internet gridlock as tens of millions of Europeans, confined 
by the coronavirus outbreak, switch to working from home.


Alphabet Inc's YouTube and Amazon joined Netflix in responding to a call 
by European Union industry chief Thierry Breton to cut picture quality 
to prevent overload.

...
Telecoms providers from Vodafone to Deutsche Telekom have reported a 
spike in data traffic, forcing Breton to issue his pre-emptive call.

...
Drei Austria said it was seeing a 50 percent increase in voice telephony 
and 15 percent in peak data loads.


He wants networks to be able to run essential services such as 
healthcare and online learning for house-bound children during the 
coronavirus outbreak.


...

Experts warn that reducing streaming rates may only give temporary 
relief and the dilemma of whether to discriminate between essential and 
non-essential traffic will resurface.


"In an ideal world, network operators would obviously upgrade their 
infrastructure and invest," said Eric Broockman, chief technology 
officer of Extreme Networks, a US. network management company.


"In the short term, what network operators could do to reduce the 
pressure on their networks and ensure connectivity for all is to 
deprioritise non-essential traffic."



--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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Re: [LINK] Propose Video Bandwidth Limit During COVID19 Emergency

[Roger Clarke]

On 20/3/20 8:34 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
> ... I suggest that video products be set to
> limit bandwidth use by default ...

Tom, naturally I agree with what you say, but I think your post omits a 
further, important consideration.


The vast majority of video transmitted during video-conferencing is 
valueless in informational terms.  Most of it is also of limited value 
in other, let's call them 'cultural', terms - the feeling of being in 
(metaphorical) contact, the feeling of being suitably 'socially 
distanced', etc.


Individuals can turn off their video-uplink after meeting-commencement 
pleasantries have been completed.


They can turn it back on during the (in most cases infrequent and fairly 
brief) episodes during which they are actively participating.


Indeed, flicking video back on, and showing a troubled face, is an 
effective, attention-drawing form of non-verbal communication to those 
people in the meeting who are actually looking at their screen at the 
time - and it's less rude and disruptive than audio interruptions.


Service-providers can include, and promote, features whereby individuals 
can participate audio-only, thereby suppressing more unwanted traffic.


(It's interesting that the proportion of audio-only connections in some 
of the conferences I participate in exceeds the proportion in Australian 
Privacy Foundation Board meetings.  And people think *APF'ers* are 
privacy nuts??).


In addition to adjusting defaults to video-off, providers could build in 
occasional (and not-*too*-obtrusive) reminders such as 'Are you *sure* 
you want to continue transmitting video and burning up network capacity?'.



I'm not criticising people for not thinking about this more often.  I'm 
part of a sub-set of society that's more likely to switch off outbound 
video, because:

(a) I'm not one of the world's most beautiful people,
(b) I'm very much aware of that, and
(c) as Secretary of a couple of virtual organisations, I work during 
meetings, with my head down.  And the top of my head is even uglier, and 
conveys even less informational value, than the front of it does.





On 20/3/20 8:34 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
There is likely to be a high demand for Internet access over the next 
few months due to COVID19. So I suggest that video products be set to 
limit bandwidth use by default. Video streaming and conference tools 
adjust to the bandwidth available, but try to use *all* that bandwidth. 
This makes them poor online citizens, like someone who fills their 
shopping trolley with toilet paper, if you let them. ;-)


On Thursday I took part in a webinar (video conference) on "COVID-19 and 
the Household/Commercial Solar and Battery Storage Market", hosted by 
the Smart Energy Council. I suggest other industry bodies and 
professional societies follow this example.


There were only a few brief dropouts in the audio (fewer than on ABC 
Radio National that morning). This was with Zoom, which is not my 
favorite product, as there is no way for participants to set the audio 
or video quality to reduce bandwidth. But it is possible to reduce data 
use to around 220 to 300 kbps by making the video window smaller.


It would be good if the video products, such as Zoom, used a low 
bandwidth mode with a small video window, by default.


More at: 
https://blog.tomw.net.au/2020/03/video-conference-on-covid-19-and.html






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Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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[LINK] Crikey: The Wholesale Abuse of the Data Retention Scheme

[Roger Clarke]

, journalists, lawyers — 
some of the recent targets of the Australian Federal Police and ASIO.


Data retention critics repeatedly warned that each of these outcomes 
would inevitably result from such a scheme: that retaining user data 
would prove an irresistible honeypot for non-security agencies, that 
mission creep would mean the scheme would stop being about “the most 
serious criminal offences” and start being about parking fines and 
rubbish bins.


They warned that metadata and content could not be cleanly separated, 
that journalists and whistleblowers would be the target of the scheme 
and that agencies would compile data in order to construct ongoing 
profiles of large numbers of people.


Those critics were ignored at the time, particularly by the media, which 
only woke up to the threat posed by data retention at the last minute 
and were placated with an exception that, as the Ombudsman 
representatives noted, is trivially easy to evade.


It’s now up to the government-controlled intelligence and security 
committee to push for fixes to a scheme that was fundamentally flawed 
from the outset.



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Re: [LINK] Outrage as University of Newcastle to track student attendance using mobile phones - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Roger Clarke]

On 5/2/20 10:30 pm, Karl Auer wrote:

...  Many "lecturers" ... add no value at all ...


On 7/2/20 8:11 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
Yes, I gave my last lecture in 2008: 
https://blog.tomw.net.au/2008/08/my-last-lecture.html


Since then I have been working out how to move the boring bits online, 
and have more interactive things for students to do in the classroom (or 
online).


These techniques may be useful, if students can't get to campus due to 
the Wuhan coronavirus. 
https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/search/label/Wuhan%20coronavirus


At least the ANU's moved on a *little* bit.

In 1994-95, when I put to my Dean that I intended dropping several 
lectures in my IS units in order to invest more in web-based resources, 
he threatened to sack me.



For the record, I see lectures as continuing to have a place.

A person doing a fresh and enthusiastic presentation to introduce a new 
unit of study, or a new segment of a unit, can help a lot of (not all) 
students grasp what the unit's about, and energise them (if only 
temporarily).  And it's *much* easier to do enthusiastic presentations 
when you're not doing all that many of them, and each seems a little 
special, because it is.


Some students like to be in the same venue as the lecturer.  But it's 
fine if the usual 50-70% prefer to watch it streamed-live, or watch it 
later.  What matters is the liveness of the performance.


And students do like a lecture at the end of a unit of study.
They like it because they hope that:
(a)  they might be able to tune back in, and recover lost time;
and mainly:
(b)  the lecturer might drop hints about what's in the final exam.

And of course the skilful lecturer satisfies (b) - by re-emphasising 
where the must-knows and should-knows are to be found in the course 
materials (which is what the bulk of the final exam should focus on in 
any event).



Maybe that'll tempt Liddy back into the fray again  (:-)}
(Liddy, it's been *years* since you posted!).


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Re: [LINK] Hhm .. a package from China Post

[Roger Clarke]

On 30/1/20 4:13 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:

HHhhh? We received an un-ordered e-Packet delivery from China Post today.
The selfie-stick (sigh) label announced we have apparently bought it. (AU$18)
Ahh well, no we haven’t.  So anyway, we should look for their return address.
And China Post announces their air-tight, black plastic parcel is from Wuhan.


Leave sealed, and douse the outside with an appropriate disinfectant?

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-05/si-hde052203.php
https://www.sanosil.com/en/disinfectant-against-coronavirus-china-2019-ncov/

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[LINK] Are the concepts of Hotsite and Warmsite dead?

[Roger Clarke]

[Once upon a time, single points-of-failure were addressed by various 
forms of redundancy.  It's expensive, and its exponentially difficult to 
implement as the number of elements within the system increases.


[Yet an expectation arose that critical services would have features 
such as hotsites that could pick up the load of a failed primary site in 
real-time, and warmsites that could re-start a service in minutes to an 
hour, while people scratched their heads trying to work out why the 
primary site was down, and what to do about it.


[In recent years, any number of services have had long outages, some of 
them with serious consequences.  Some of those were still in-house 
rather than be-clouded.  Clearly the multiple bank and airline outages 
should have had hotsite or at least warmsite recovery plans, and didn't.


[But, once you've switched to the cloud, surely it's easy, even 
inherent.  We were told by the spruikers that supply is elastic, and 
more instances are run up in real-time.  And it's all highly dispersed 
and therefore single-point-of-failure issues are more manageable.


[I'm not sure how critical the ACT ESA's website is.  It might be used 
only to inform the public;  or it might deliver operational services. 
But, either way, you'd have expected inexpensive warmsite-like features 
to be part of what an emergency services site would be about.


[What am I missing here?]


AWS outage cripples ACT Emergency Services Agency website as Canberra 
bushfire rages

Wobble drags on through Thursday
Julian Bajkowski
itNews
Thu Jan 23 2020

The ACT Government’s Emergency Services Agency (ESA) has attributed a 
website outage that hit in the middle of a rapidly escalating bushfire 
between Canberra Airport and Queanbeyan to Thursday’s AWS outage in Sydney.


Capping off an already bad day for AWS after significant availability 
problems hit its Sydney region, the ESA took to twitter to redirect 
Canberrans to Facebook and local media to obtain current information on 
the fire hitting the national capital that remains at a watch and act level.


The outage hit as Canberra Airport was shut to commercial traffic 
because of the fire, with residents around Oaks Estate warned to get out 
of the road of the oncoming blaze after two fires merged and engulfed a 
rubbish tip.


It is still unclear why the ESA website was hit by a single point of 
failure, however the blaze, known as the Beard fire, is burning close to 
the industrial suburb of Fyshwick which houses several data centres.


The blaze near the airport is also within stone’s throw of the the 
Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre 
offices at the Brindabella Park office complex that houses a clutch of 
other technology, consulting and miltech tenants.


AWS users started noting problems with services around 11.15am AEDT with 
the problems continuing at 4.00pm.


The issues affect services including EC2, elastic load balancing (ELB), 
relational database service (RDS), AppStream 2.0, ElastiCache, 
WorkSpaces and Lambda.


Update: The ESA's website was restored on Thursday evening as the fire 
was downgraded to 'advice' level overnight.



--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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Re: [LINK] O/t A strange reluctance of the media to explain it

[Roger Clarke]

On 4/1/20 11:36 am, JLWhitaker wrote:

On 4/01/2020 10:56 am, David wrote:
It's interesting to note the way PR companies succeeded in changing 
the language when awareness of GW began developing.  The original term 
was "greenhouse warming" which neatly incorporated the cause of the 
problem (accumulation of greenhouse gasses) and the effect (planetary 
warming).  PR first changed the language to "global warming" which got 
rid of the cause, then to "climate change" which leaves it all wide 
open; maybe the planet is cooling?


The radical honest media is now calling it global heating. I saw that 
first in The Guardian, but then noticed it in other publications as 
well, one or two. Heating is far more scary than warming, which is frog 
in the pot dangerous. Global Burning may be more appropriate now and 
might start to get attention.


Long, long time Anthropomorphic Global Overheating (Long, long time AGO)

Anthropomorphic Global Overheating Needs You (AGONY)

Anthropomorphic Global Overheating Needs Everyone's Resolve (A GONER)

Anthropomorphic but Avoidable Radical Global Heating  (AARGH!)


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[LINK] InnAus: Labor remembers it suckered for a Coalition Promise

[Roger Clarke]

 risk by jeopardising chances of securing a 
CLOUD Act agreement.


“Their failure to do the right thing has caught up to them. Their 
failure to address those flaws in the way the PJCIS recommended they be 
fixed has led to an inability to access data because our arrangements 
won’t conform with the CLOUD Act,” Mr Husic said.


“It’s now catching up with the government. Their failure to fix that act 
has jeopardised national security.”


Shadow innovation minister Clare O’Neil said there is “no better 
example” of the Parliament’s tech problems than the passing of the 
encryption legislation.


“When we make decisions like the one that led to this bill, then we do a 
disservice to the industry we need to be building and growing, because 
that is our economic future,” Ms O’Neil said.


“And here we are almost a year on having an agreement of trust between 
the government and opposition being broken. It is incredibly disappointing.”


She said the encryption powers are the number one issue raised with her 
by the tech sector, and that it is “emblematic” of the government’s 
approach to the digital economy.


“The government has been in office for seven years and still has nothing 
to say on these matters except an incredibly damaging piece of 
legislation that they promised they’d fix but have done nothing about,” 
she said.


The Coalition declined to be involved with the debate, with its side of 
the chamber left mostly empty through the Labor ministers’ speeches.



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[LINK] Rescue Your ACS: Crowdfund the Action

[Roger Clarke]

I'm trying to reach people with an interest in the professional society 
in the IT arena - members, ex-members, prospective members, and people 
who think that professionalism is important and needs to be sustained.


An article appears in Innovation Australia this morning on the topic.

Apologies to everyone who receives this for whom it's not relevant!

___

Short Version

Control of the Australian Computer Society is being wrenched out of the 
hands of its members.  A crowdfunding campaign has been launched.


We're seeking help in funding action to Rescue Your ACS.

Contribute here:  https://www.gofundme.com/f/rescue-your-acs

Read more here:   http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS-Part2.html

Please consider contributing, and promoting the campaign to your network 
of friends and colleagues who believe in the professional society.


Thanks!



Long Version

The executive of the Australian Computer Society wants to replace the 
existing Professional Association Rules with a Company Constitution, but 
one that vests all power in the Board and extinguishes members' control.


A group of senior members sought proxy votes against the motion.  We 
estimate that we reached 500-600 members.  163 proxies were cast against 
the motion.  At the Meeting a further 23 voted in-person against.


Overall 747 votes were cast, so the executive had to mobilise 561 votes 
to get it passed.  The President, as Meeting Chair, announced that there 
were precisely 561 votes for the motion.


In addition, two proxies against were rejected on dubious grounds.

We don't think the process passes the pub test.  Our legal position is 
that the resolution to proceed to incorporation has not been validly 
passed by the ACS.


Action has been commenced.  Court orders may be needed to rule the 
resolution invalid.  A group of senior members would appreciate your 
support by contributing to the costs of the action.  Can you help?


* The crowdfunding web-page is here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/rescue-your-acs

* Information about the current action is here:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS-Part2.html

* The original information-page is here:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS.html

* The most useful media articles to date are in Innovation Australia

The ACS is a professional association.  Members proudly joined it.
Let's make it even better.  Reject the resolution.
Spread the word across the country.  It's THE MEMBERS' association.

Thanks  ...  Roger Clarke FACS, on behalf of the group of senior members

Enquiries to mailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au




Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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[LINK] Schneier on AA and Cybercon Bans

[Roger Clarke]

dane," he said.


"My guess is that someone at the ACSC saw the word 'whistleblower', and 
because that's kind of sensitive here, sort of freaked."


"I would say you're morally obligated to go read the two talks," 
Schneier said.


"Actually if you do want to read them, censorcon.net is where you'll 
find the slides and the abstracts."


The audience applauded.

--
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[LINK] PROXIES SOUGHT: To Rescue Your ACS, Your Vote is Necessary

[Roger Clarke]

___

Short Version:

To avoid the complete loss of member control over the ACS,
fill in a proxy form and Vote NO to the ACS executive's proposal.

Details on how to cast a proxy vote are here:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS.html#P

The Media Release is here:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/MR-ACS-Hijack-191013.html

___

Long Version:

Summary:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS.html

Background information:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS.html#B

Why approval would mean the death of the professional society:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS.html#A

How to cast what may be your last meaningful vote:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS.html#V

How to provide a valid proxy-vote against the proposal:
http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS.html#P

___

Medium-Sized Version:

The executive of the Australian Computer Society has called a General 
Meeting at 09:00 on Fri 25 Oct.


A motion is proposed that would convert the ACS from an incorporated 
association to a company limited by guarantee.


Many members are very concerned about the directions that the 
organisation has taken.  It is being converted from a professional 
society into an industry association and/or a marketing corporation.


If the resolution is passed, it would remove the last vestiges of member 
influence over the organisation's strategy and operations, and members 
would never be able to regain control.


Senior members of the Society are urging ACS members to evaluate the 
proposal, and exercise their vote against it.


The resolution requires 75% approval to pass.

So each vote against the motion is powerful, because it neutralises 3 
'Yes' votes.


Thank you for giving consideration to our request that you help rescue 
your professional society!



The ACS executive has provided no information to members about the 
arguments against the motion.  In addition, requests to send an email to 
their lists of members, addressed to the President, all 8 Branch Chairs 
and the Chair of the Fellows Committee, have been ignored.


So please forward this email to any member who you believe may wish to 
appoint a proxy and direct them to vote No.



Your Vote is Necessary to Rescue Your ACS

http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/RescueYourACS.html#P

__


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[LINK] Open Letter re ACS and ADMA: Invitation to Sign

[Roger Clarke]

[Possibly Off-Topic, in which case my apologies;  but possibly not]


The ACS announced in mid-September its 'acquisition' of four 
organisations.  One of them is the long-running industry association, 
the Association for Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA).


The proposal is inconsistent with the role of a professional society.

Following discussions among senior ACS members, an Open Letter has been 
composed.  It calls on the ACS executive to abandon the project, and to 
review and adapt the society's governance structures and processes.


An initial group of senior ACS members have signed the Open Letter.

This email is an invitation to all ACS members (and ex-members who left 
because of dissatisfaction with the organisation) to consider the 
situation, and, if they see fit, to add their signature to the Letter.


Further background is provided in the preamble to the Letter.

See: http://rogerclarke.com/SOS/ACS-ADMA-Ltr.html

_


To add your signature:

Please use the web-form on the web-page above to provide your name, your 
professional role, your membership-level, any material roles you've 
performed within ACS, and your email-address.


This is a rescue mission, to save the ACS from being converted from a 
professional society into an industry association or a semi-commercial 
organisation.


The initial signatories have long lists of roles relevant to ACS.  But, 
to achieve the aim, members' signatures are just as significant if their 
profile says 'ACS Associate; Practitioner' or 'ACS Student member' - or 
indeed 'ACS Ex-member who would consider re-joining'.


The initial group of signatories encourages all ACS members to give the 
most serious consideration to this matter.



Please forward this email to colleagues who are members
(because we do not have access to a complete list of ACS members).

Please also forward this email to lapsed members who have left ACS.


Thanks!  ...  Roger Clarke, on behalf of the initial signatories

_

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Re: [LINK] [EFA-Privacy] And so it begins....

[Roger Clarke]

On 8/10/19 4:09 pm, JLWhitaker wrote:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-10-08/us-whistleblower-speech-cancelled-at-cybersecurity-conference/11581986 
Suelette Dreyfus and Thomas Drake dropped from cybersecurity conference 
program. No explanation given. I guess someone leaned on the organisers, 
supposedly one of the 'partners', but no one's talking.


So will the members of the 'professional body', the AISA, take this 
lying down?


https://www.aisa.org.au/aboutus/constitution-code-of-ethics/

Very probably, because it would cost them money and connections if they 
stood up for principles.


And so fascism takes hold.

Please forward this to people who are active in AISA.

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Re: [LINK] How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

[Roger Clarke]

Has there been any analysis of the question as to whether all copies of 
the data are deleted?


If Google says 'yes', they're lying of course.

To be fair, a simple answer isn't easy to formulate, e.g.

'The live copy will be deleted at the time requested.  All copies will 
be deleted as their backup-cycle is completed, e.g. working-cache within 
a few hours, international mirroring within 24 hours, cyclical backups 
within a month'.


But it's very easy to fail 'the whole truth' test, because:
(1)  'fire' or 'off-site' backup may be on different and longer cycles
 http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/PBAR.html#FB at (7)
(2)  'archival' backup is recommended, in the form of occasional, say
 yearly copies of 'off-site' backup retained indefinitely - and
 spooled from old to newer media periodically
 http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/PBAR.html#A at (11)-(13)

I have all email since Feb 1993, and almost all files since Apr 1984.
(Yeah, alright:  I failed to spool some of the diskettes forward from 
the 1984-90 period, and I can't read MacWrite, etc. any more).


Google's still young, but if it's any good, it's got lots backed up from 
at least the early 2000s, and maybe back to 1998.


So what are the chances they're telling the truth on this matter?


Practicable Backup Arrangements for Small Organisations and Individuals
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/PBAR.html

Can Small Users Recover from the Cloud?
http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/PBAR-SP.html

___

On 4/10/19 1:59 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:

How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

Google has now given us an option to set search and location data to 
automatically disappear after a certain time. We should all use it.

By Brian X. Chen  Oct. 3, 2019 
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/technology/personaltech/google-data-self-destruct-privacy.html?
  (snipped)


For years, Google has kept a record of our internet searches by default. The 
company hoards that data so it can build detailed profiles on us, which helps 
it make personalized recommendations for content but also lets marketers better 
target us with ads. While there have been tools we can use to manually purge 
our Google search histories, few of us remember to do so.

So I’m recommending that we all try Google’s new privacy tools.

In May, the company introduced an option that lets us automatically delete data 
related to our Google searches, requests made with its virtual assistant and 
also our location history.

On Wednesday, Google followed up by expanding the auto-delete ability to 
YouTube.

Most of Google’s new privacy controls are in a web tool called My Activity. 
(Here’s the URL: myactivity.google.com.)

Once you get into the tool and click on Activity Controls, you will see an option 
called Web & App Activity. Click Manage Activity and then the button under the 
calendar icon. Here, you can set your activity history on several Google products 
to automatically erase itself after three months or after 18 months. This data 
includes searches made on Google.com, voice requests made with Google Assistant, 
destinations that you looked up on Maps and searches in Google’s Play app store.

Which duration should you go for? It depends on how much you care about getting 
personalized recommendations. If you’re the type who doesn’t care to get any 
personalized recommendations on Google products, you can simply disable search 
history from being retained in your account. Next to the Web & App Activity 
option, toggle the switch to the off position.

For those who don’t want Google to create a record of their location history, 
there’s a switch for that. On the My Activity page, click Activity controls and 
scroll to Location history and turn the switch to the off position.

Just do it

In offering these privacy tools, Google is a step ahead of other internet 
giants like Facebook and Twitter, which don’t provide ways to easily delete 
large batches of dated posts.

It’s difficult to imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to take advantage of 
Google’s auto-delete tools. There’s no practical benefit to letting Google keep 
a history of our online activities from years back. So don’t delay in wiping a 
tiny bit of your digital traces away.


Brian X. Chen is the lead consumer technology writer. He reviews products and 
writes Tech Fix, a column about solving tech-related problems. Before joining 
The Times in 2011 he reported on Apple and the wireless industry for Wired. 
@bxchen  A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 3, 2019, Section B, 
Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: How to Set Your Google Data 
to Self-Destruct.

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Re: [LINK] Card Cancellation as a Condition of Statement-Entry Enquiry

[Roger Clarke]

On 2/10/19 11:07 am, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:

I had my credit card cancelled because the company (ANZ) detected a
transaction from a known overseas fraudulent source. They informed me by
SMS.
This could have been a bit awkward, as I was traveling and needed the
card to pay for hotels etc. When I spoke to their call centre they
agreed to re-instate the card but to bar any Card Not Present transactions.
After some stupidity on their part (they sent the card to an old
address) I got new cards.


Where transactions are reasonably judged to have been conducted 
fraudulently (and by someone other than the card-holder), re-issue may 
be necessary, on the grounds that sufficient of the data is in the hands 
of a third party.


But there are multiple stupidities involved in the system:

(1)  Statements show minimal information, in my case:
 01 Sep Telstra Melbourne   $150

(2)  I was making an enquiry, not disputing the transaction, but:
 (a)  the only additional data available to the call-centre
  was that the tx was CNP (and even that wasn't volunteered)
 (b)  the systems of (some?) card-issuers and/or processing
  companies fail to service the need for a request for
  further information, i.e. are seriously consumer-unfriendly **

(3)  Where the nature of the fraud is consistent with CNP transactions
 and the fraudster appears not to have access to the content of the
 chip, then a bar on CNP transactions, possibly coupled with a
 parallel re-issue process, could be a justified and effective
 safeguard;  whereas cancellation-and-re-issue is not

(4)  The slowness of re-issue services is simply consumer-hostile


**  I've *once* received meaningful data.  It was a dump of the EFTPOS 
terminal log.  Deep down amongst the remarkable amount of data, I found 
evidence that the tx was 'Not Authenticated' - which negated the claim 
made by both the Slovakian and the local banks that it was 
'Authenticated'.  Confronted with that evidence, NAB refunded the money.


Aside:  When I'd eventually reconstructed what happened, I had mixed 
feelings.  I bought petrol after entering Slovakia from Poland, via the 
Tatra Mts.  The attendant talked at me in Slovakian, but I have no 
Slavic (other than 'dobra pivo'), and he spoke neither English nor 
German.  He got upset when I (so he thought) ignored him and left.  So 
he entered an unauthorised charge for 60 Euros.  I later realised that 
it was for a year's Motorway Vignette.  I hadn't been in Slovakia for 30 
years, hadn't (yet) been on a motorway, and hadn't (yet) seen any signs 
about a vignette being needed.  If he'd charged me EUR 15 for the 
minimum 5 days, I'd have probably dropped the dispute - or even not 
disputed it in first place.


___



On 1/10/2019 7:15 pm, Roger Clarke wrote:

Has anyone encountered this before?  On the odd occasions I've queried
a statement-entry (as often resulting in dispute-and-refund as not),
I've faced the prospect of a fee, but not card cancellation.


My WhichBank Visa account statement shows:
01 Sep Telstra Melbourne   $150

I've not used Telstra for anything for a couple of years now, could
(initially) find no documentation, and can find no email-traffic.  And
it's my company card, so my 'paperwork' is pretty reliable.

The IVR process was actually pretty good, and only c.10 mins.
(That's sufficiently unusual to be worth recording!).

At first 'Michael' said he could see no other information.

During the conversation, he accidentally mentioned that it was a 'card
not present' transaction.

I could have pressured him more, but as far as I could tell that means
either phone or Internet (or he doesn't know either).

The killer was 'I can put a dispute through.  We'll cancel your card'.

Probing didn't unlock any fallback position available to him.

For example, the propositions that (a) the possibly valid, possibly
fraudulent transaction occurred precisely 1 month ago, and (b) every
fraudster knows to extract what they can before the boom lowers,
rather than sitting back for a month.  I could have added (c) any
fraudster knows that it's less obvious if you use a little-known name
rather than a major brand as your cover-story.

He offered to record the complaint.  (He may have had to deal with
more astonished callers than just me).


Can anyone see anything other than security theatre (and consumer
hostility) in such a policy?


P.S.  After due consideration, I remembered a telecomms-related
transaction.  It was a Boost 4G Prepaid/Data-Rollover service.
Sure enough, in the Boost fineprint is "service provided by Telstra").







--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor i

[LINK] Card Cancellation as a Condition of Statement-Entry Enquiry

[Roger Clarke]

Has anyone encountered this before?  On the odd occasions I've queried a 
statement-entry (as often resulting in dispute-and-refund as not), I've 
faced the prospect of a fee, but not card cancellation.



My WhichBank Visa account statement shows:
01 Sep Telstra Melbourne   $150

I've not used Telstra for anything for a couple of years now, could 
(initially) find no documentation, and can find no email-traffic.  And 
it's my company card, so my 'paperwork' is pretty reliable.


The IVR process was actually pretty good, and only c.10 mins.
(That's sufficiently unusual to be worth recording!).

At first 'Michael' said he could see no other information.

During the conversation, he accidentally mentioned that it was a 'card 
not present' transaction.


I could have pressured him more, but as far as I could tell that means 
either phone or Internet (or he doesn't know either).


The killer was 'I can put a dispute through.  We'll cancel your card'.

Probing didn't unlock any fallback position available to him.

For example, the propositions that (a) the possibly valid, possibly 
fraudulent transaction occurred precisely 1 month ago, and (b) every 
fraudster knows to extract what they can before the boom lowers, rather 
than sitting back for a month.  I could have added (c) any fraudster 
knows that it's less obvious if you use a little-known name rather than 
a major brand as your cover-story.


He offered to record the complaint.  (He may have had to deal with more 
astonished callers than just me).



Can anyone see anything other than security theatre (and consumer 
hostility) in such a policy?



P.S.  After due consideration, I remembered a telecomms-related 
transaction.  It was a Boost 4G Prepaid/Data-Rollover service.

Sure enough, in the Boost fineprint is "service provided by Telstra").


--
Roger Clarkemailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au
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 Professor in the Faculty of LawUniversity of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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Re: [LINK] Numbers limit how accurately digital computers model chaos

[Roger Clarke]

On 25/9/19 9:29 am, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:

Scientists and engineers hate non-linearity. Unfortunately the world is
essentially non-linear.


A quibble about language.  (I'm enjoying the conversation).

All mathematics involves intellectual models / mind-stuff.
Mathematics is not, and not of, the real world.

Statements like "the world is essentially non-linear" blend words that 
apply in the two distinct spaces of the mind and the real-world.


Some scientists and engineers 'know all that'.

But the media, and the public, are very prone to confusion, because 
they've never heard Einstein's dictum 'God doesn't play dice with the 
world'.


Worse still, many scientists and engineers fall into the habit of loose 
language, and trap their own thinking into the assumption that model = 
system.


Here's an (inevitably flawed) attempt to avoid loose language:

Various kinds of mathematical models can be used to represent various 
real-world systems, and can achieve varying levels of approximations of 
real-world behaviour and outcomes.


We (all) believe that a wide array of physical phenomena are being 
approximated with workable error-factors (e.g. tides, and met forecasts 
in relatively stable conditions).  In some circumstances, physical 
phenomena are being approximated with incredibly small error-factors 
(e.g. solar system mechanics, as indicated by moon and Mars landings).


Models of real-world systems of large scale (many entities) and high 
complexity (many inter-relationships among many entities) have 
notoriously large error-factors, and have error-factors that vary 
enormously depending on the circumstances and that defy attempts at 
prediction.


A new round of AI enthusiasm is prancing its nonsense around the world. 
And this one has associated with it a wave of artefact-autonomy.


Unless we use our language very carefully, we're inviting:
(a)  simplistic scientists and engineers, and feeble-minded marketers,
 to over-believe and over-sell, and deliver horrible outcomes
 (of which Robodebt is merely a harbinger)
(b)  the media and the public will put up with the nonsense for a
 period of time, but public backlash will in due course wash away
 the hubris, and with it not just the badly-conceived and harmful
 models and artefacts, but also some that are of value to humankind



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Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] RFI: ACS - ADMA Announcement: Insights Sought

[Roger Clarke]

If anyone can offer, or point to, any of the back-story on this matter, 
I (and other ACS members and Fellows) would greatly appreciate it.


Australian Computer Society buys rivals to target data
Acquires Data-driven Marketing Association and three more data-centric orgs.
Simon Sharwood
itNews
Sep 19 2019
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/australian-computer-society-buys-rivals-to-target-data-531176

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Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd  78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA 


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Visiting Professor in Computer ScienceAustralian National University
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[LINK] Bugs came from the biological world, and they're going back

[Roger Clarke]

When Biology Becomes Software
Bruce Schneier
Crypto-Gram
September 15, 2019
https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/2019/0915.html#cg22

[Wet chem labs are curiosities now, with compututational models far less 
messy, faster, and above all cheaper.


[Australia's own Greg Egan played with some of this is in his 
'autoverse', in Permutation City (1994).


[But that was sci-fi, right?]

...
>As synthetic biology "programming" reaches the complexity of 
traditional computer programming, the risks of computer systems will 
transfer to biological systems. The difference is that biological 
systems have the potential to cause much greater, and far more lasting, 
damage than computer systems.

>
>Programmers write software through trial and error. Because computer 
systems are so complex and there is no real theory of software, 
programmers repeatedly test the code they write until it works properly.

...
>Unfortunately, the software solution of making lots of mistakes and 
fixing them as you go doesn't work in biology.

...
>Inadvertent or intentional release of these newly coded "programs" may 
result in pathogens of expanded host range (just think swine flu) or 
organisms that wreck delicate ecological balances.

...
>Unlike computer software, there's no way so far to "patch" biological 
systems once released to the wild, although researchers are trying to 
develop one. Nor are there ways to "patch" the humans (or animals or 
crops) susceptible to such agents. Stringent biocontainment helps, but 
no containment system provides zero risk.

>
>Opportunities for mischief and malfeasance often occur when expertise 
is siloed, fields intersect only at the margins, and when the gathered 
knowledge of small, expert groups doesn't make its way into the larger 
body of practitioners who have important contributions to make.

...


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Re: [LINK] "Observer consciousness collapses the quantum wave function"

[Roger Clarke]

I smell a nested spoof:

> ... controversial claim: Observer consciousness collapses the quantum 
wave function in a double-slit experiment.


> ... novel research protocol [to study it]

Sceptics Australia, where are you?



On 12/9/19 2:40 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:

Metascience Research Reform Movement

https://www.fetzer-franklin-fund.org/projects/advanced-meta-experimental-protocol/


"How to reveal uncontrolled false-positives in scientific experiments?"

A novel research protocol has been published for improving the scientific 
process towards more robust findings:

“The Advanced Meta-Experimental Protocol (AMP).”

To download the manuscript describing the new research protocol click on the 
link https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01891

Background

As a first test case, the AMP was implemented to study this controversial 
claim: Observer consciousness collapses the quantum wave function in a 
double-slit experiment.

For explanation, one potential mechanism for mind-matter interaction is based 
on quantum mechanics, in particular the proposal that observer consciousness 
collapses the wave function.

For sure, the implications for science and for our image of reality would be 
revolutionary, if a quantum-observer effect could be demonstrated under 
controlled laboratory conditions. Indeed, a new branch of science would be 
opened up as a result.

Previously, in a series of studies, Radin and collaborators have claimed 
laboratory evidence for the intentional action of observer consciousness on 
laser light-interference intensity in a double-slit apparatus.

To rigorously test the validity of this claim, the novel research protocol 
(AMP), which includes systematic sham-experiments, i.e., counterfactual 
meta-experimentation, was adopted in a confirmatory replication attempt of the 
Radin double-slit experiment. Whereas the replication study was unable to 
confirm the original results, the AMP identified a statistically-significant 
false-positive effect with the sham-experiment in the absence of the test 
subjects.

Publication Abstract (Walleczek and von Stillfried, 2019)

Prior work by Radin et al. (2012, 2016) reported the astonishing claim that an 
anomalous effect on double-slit (DS) light-interference intensity had been 
measured as a function of quantum-based observer consciousness.

Given the radical implications, could there exist an alternative explanation, 
other than an anomalous consciousness effect, such as artifacts including 
systematic methodological error (SME)? To address this question, a conceptual 
replication study involving 10,000 test trials was commissioned to be performed 
blindly by the same investigator who had reported the original results.

The commissioned study performed confirmatory and strictly predictive tests 
with the advanced meta-experimental protocol (AMP), including with systematic 
negative controls and the concept of the sham-experiment, i.e., counterfactual 
meta-experimentation. Whereas the replication study was unable to confirm the 
original results, the AMP was able to identify an unacceptably low 
true-negative detection rate with the sham-experiment in the absence of test 
subjects. The false-positive detection rate reached 50%, whereby the 
false-positive effect, which would be indistinguishable from the predicted 
true-positive effect, was significant at p = 0.021 (σ = −2.02; N = 1,250 test 
trials). The false-positive effect size was about 0.01%, which is within 
an-order-of-magnitude of the claimed consciousness effect (0.001%; Radin et 
al., 2016).

The false-positive effect, which indicates the presence of significant SME in 
the Radin DS-experiment, suggests that skepticism should replace optimism 
concerning the radical claim that an anomalous quantum consciousness effect has 
been observed in a controlled laboratory setting.

PUBLICATIONS:
Walleczek J. and von Stillfried N. (2019) False-positive Effect in the Radin 
Double-slit Experiment on Observer Consciousness as Determined with the 
Advanced Meta-experimental Protocol. Front. Psychol. 10:1891, 22 August 2019; 
DOI https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01891
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Re: [LINK] "Group Assessment"

[Roger Clarke]

On 4/9/19 9:38 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
Graduates will likely be working in international teams, using a form of 
English, but not Australian English. I have to use American English when 
submitting papers to international computing and engineering 
conferences, even when these are run in Australia, or Indonesia.


Many journals publish in *either* international English or American 
English (but they tend to prefer consistency within the article).


I've never yet had to adjust to US English, in >150 refereed and >200 
edited articles.  (Years ago, IEEE Computer chose to do a substantial 
editorial job on one paper, but I had to re-correct a number of things 
that didn't come through 'in translation'.  'Two similar cultures 
separated by a common language', as Shaw and Churchill put it).



China is scaling up to teach millions of international students in 
English, and they will likely use American English. 
https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2018/12/globalization-of-chinese-education.html 


They will likely use their own English dialects.

And that varies among the Chinese diaspora, and doubtless also among the 
many Chinas within China.


I imagine that when a Shangainese, a Beijinger and a Shenzenee walk into 
a pub, they look askance at one another from time to time, whether 
they're talking in their own versions of Putonghua *or* of English.


I've often had to pause and think about what the well-spoken and 
well-educated Hong Kong person would have said if they were speaking my 
preferred dialect, i.e. international / BBC / ABC English.  (But good 
Hong Kong English is way more understandable than some Caribbean 
dialects, many Indian dialects, and of course Glaswegian and Geordie).


'Vive la difference' is usually thought to mean 'long live differences!' 
or 'isn't it good that there are differences', but it might as well mean 
'differences live!'.



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[LINK] Can NPP legally conduct secret pen tests on banks?

[Roger Clarke]

Secret penetration tests, fines for banks under PayID security crackdown
NPP deploys ‘unilateral’ protections to harden network.
Julian Bajkowski
itNews
Sep 3 2019
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/secret-penetration-tests-fines-for-banks-under-payid-security-crackdown-530485

Australian banks and credit unions will have their transactional systems 
secretly penetration tested to arrest deficiencies and stop fraud and 
abuse of institutional infrastructure plugged into to the New Payments 
Platform after two PayID look-up attacks.

...


[I wonder how this squares up with the computer offences provision in 
s.476 of the what we called (for over a century?) the Crimes Act, but is 
now the Schedule to the Criminal Code Act:

http://www8.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html
(then search for 476)

[The mixture of incompetence and obstructiveness of the AGD's 
legislative draftsdonkeys is on full display in this area.  Critical law 
isn't in sections of a principal statute, but is buried deep down in a 
Schedule.  And of course it's expressed in the most excruciatingly messy 
structure and text imaginable.]


[Does anyone know whether:
1.  s.476 has the effect of criminalising pen testing?
2.  NPP has a dispensation to ignore it?
3.  consent is a sufficient defence against s.476?


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Re: [LINK] Apple Asia's Time-Server is >2 minutes fast

[Roger Clarke]

On 29/08/2019 11:15 am, Roger Clarke wrote:

By switching to the European server, I got proper time back.



On 29/8/19 12:12 pm, Andy Farkas wrote:

Why not go straight to the source: http://www.ntp.org/


I'd have to get under the bonnet, to disconnect the current options in 
the Sys Prefs, or add another one.  I can't even *spell* shell any more, 
let alone vi.




The time server at Apple Asia seems ok to me:


Yes, it's back to the same as the Euro server now.

It was them pesky HK demonstrators, or the HK police, or the stamping of 
military boots in Shenzen, or a North Korean missile test, or ...




# ntpdate -q time.asia.apple.com
server 17.253.82.125, stratum 1, offset 0.019416, delay 0.19731
server 17.253.66.253, stratum 1, offset 0.004917, delay 0.06952
server 17.253.66.125, stratum 1, offset 0.003579, delay 0.07239
29 Aug 12:08:04 ntpdate[56377]: adjust time server 17.253.66.253 offset 
0.004917 sec


-andyf

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