Cloud Computing, your information is our information.

The new catch phrase of the second decade in the second millennium is CLOUD COMPUTING.

There is a large variety of promotional methods used to entice the novice computer user to this new way of computing.

The large and so called ‘trusted’ companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft and even telco’s like Optus are prompting their product, which offer the user no option to opt out of ‘cloud computing’ if they so desire. The updated operating systems only have this mode of data storage.

In the end what does it mean to Mr. Joe Average?

Cloud computing is where all your information from a particular device, e.g. iPhone, iPod or other smartphone is kept on the manufacturers servers.

For example, accounting companies even offer free software, for you to use provided that your computer is connected to the internet, and your data is stored on their servers.

In many instances there have been examples of the breach of privacy by companies like Google, Apple, Research In Motion (RIM), Telstra, police departments, government institutions, and even schools, where customer’s private data has made it out into the public arena, with no legal repercussions, no fines, or convictions, and no one was held responsible.

Conversely, when government information has made it out into the public arena, Wikileaks, there has been an unprecedented witch hunt by the world governments to incarcerate the founder Julian Assange, with the support of the government controlled mass media.

The end game is to obtain every bit of information on the connected users, in whatever method possible, to collate this in one central database, for profiling, storage, and sale at later a date to governments and corporations.

The largest Information Technology companies have proven that they are breach of customer privacy acts that the general populous must adhere to, but have not been legally penalised for such breaches.

Cloud computing is an assault on user privacy, only to the benefit of the corporations and governments that hold this information.

Privacy for the end user is NON EXISTANT.

This is a reminiscent of a communistic approach to surveillance and intelligence gathering.

The mass media organisations are auspiciously quiet with regards to the dangers of cloud computing.

WA top cop's son jailed for drug lab blast

THE West Australian police commissioner's son has been sentenced to 16 months' jail over his involvement in a clandestine drug lab explosion.

Russell Joseph O'Callaghan, 30, was sentenced in the Perth District Court after pleading guilty in April to attempting to manufacture the prohibited drug methamphetamine.

O'Callaghan, the son of Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan, was arrested and charged following a clandestine drug lab explosion at a Department of Housing unit at Carlisle, in Perth's south, on March 20 in which he and four others suffered burns.

Two children, aged three and four, escaped injury.

O'Callaghan spent more than two weeks in hospital for treatment to burns to his head, shoulders and arms.

Two other men were also charged with similar offences and their cases are still in the Magistrates Court.

n sentencing on Friday, Judge Felicity Davis said she had
considered a suspended prison sentence
but decided against this because the offence was too serious.

O'Callaghan had his sentence reduced by six months after he agreed to give evidence against the two other men allegedly involved in the attempted manufacture of the drug.

O'Callaghan will be eligible for parole after eight months.

news.com.au 2 Sep 2011

Such an important event where the head of the police force's son is involved in drug production operation, and the mass media write only a few lines.

If this was a member of the masses, the media would go out of its way to not only describe the drug lab, but would go out of its way to also discredit the individual, and their entire history would be for everyone to see.

Judges and police work hand in hand against the masses in general.

It is appalling that the judge even considered a 'suspended prison sentence'.

Police are generally above the law, as they are the law upholders, and the general politics is not to incarcerate them, so evidence is usually manipulated and tampered with, in such a manner not to warrant incarceration.

Another clear indication of how the mass media works for the government.

Aussie workcover ads hidden agenda

The mass media is currently running a government sponsored advertisement program promoting returning to work after injury.

The advertisement states, the from the words of a doctor it is beneficial for the worker to get back to work, as soon as possible, as this aids in the recovery process.

The advertisement is misleading in many ways, in particular that the suggestion is not from a doctor.

Evidence from within the medical profession has suggested otherwise and may not necessarily be correct even in the majority of examples, as depicted in the advertisement.

The government outsources its workcover claims to agencies or rather processing businesses. These businesses are instructed to minimise the costs (payments) by not recognising claims as legitimate.

When an employee is injured, and is not working, the claims are referred to workcover, and compensation payments are made.

The government’s prime objective is to minimise the amount of payments made to the public, and not the health of the individual as portrayed in the advertisement.

Police scamming motorists

The police is involved in a scam together with the traffic authority to drum up business for the Road Traffic Authority (RTA) at the expense of the unsuspecting motorists.

When a motorist is stopped by police on the side of the road, the police officer then alleges that the vehicle’s exhaust is too loud, even though it may be standard or appears to be standard.

The officer having no mechanical qualifications or any instrument that measures the sound pressure level of the vehicle’s exhaust, then issues a defect notice to the driver of the vehicle.

You are guilty under assumption, and the onus is for you to prove that you are innocent. The myth is falsely propagated by the mass media that you “Innocent until proven guilty”.

The vehicle then must be taken to the RTA to have a test done at the owner’s expense.

No compensation is given for the time or materials used in clearing one’s name.

If you do not do this, you are automatically fined further.

In order to satisfy performance criteria, police personnel must be a (financial) asset to the government. Bonuses and advancement is based on the financial success of the police officer’s performance, rather than how many crimes have been stopped.

Police are urged not to take on ‘jobs’ that require time consuming paperwork. Seldom reported by the mass media, many crimes not only go unreported but not pursued by police, as the ‘paperwork’ factor is counted and not a financial viability to the government.

After obtaining this information from the officer, the police officer laughed at how they ‘roll’ the motorists.

corpau.

The 'idiot who bought a stolen iPhone' and the 10-day chase to track it down

Emily Kitson thought her iPhone 4 was gone forever when it was stolen from beneath a cash register while she was at work.

Her partner, Josh, was beginning to think so too after dealing with what he said was an unhelpful police officer.

On Saturday May 21 this year, Ms Kitson, 19, had been working at a lolly store at Broadmeadows Shopping Centre in Victoria.

"It was just like a normal Saturday and I had my phone underneath the till where everyone else leaves their phone," Ms Kitson said.

During the day she served a man she described as being in his 30s or 40s who "distracted both of the staff and paid for his lollies and left". Immediately after serving him, though, another man came up to Ms Kitson, she said, and told her that he saw the man she just served steal her phone.

"I checked and ... it was gone, so I went and got the security guard and they sort of chased after him."

After waiting about an hour, Ms Kitson said she was told by security that the man who stole her phone had got away in a taxi but that they had imagery on CCTV footage of him stealing it.

Tracking app discovered

Following the iPhone theft, Ms Kitson said she called Josh, who remembered installing "Google Latitude" on to her phone, a location-aware app that lets authorised friends track where someone's phone is. The app uses GPS, wi-fi and mobile phone towers to determine a phone's location.

Luckily for Ms Kitson, Josh was an authorised friend. "I completely forgot about it," she said.

After realising the app was installed, Ms Kitson said Josh told her he had tracked the phone "to a place about a kilometre from the shopping centre". The location was constantly updating.

With CCTV footage available for police to obtain from Broadmeadows Shopping Centre and the Google Latitude app pinpointing the phone to a suburban house, Emily and her partner believed they had some hope in retrieving it with the help of police.

Police involvement

But Ms Kitson said the police officer she and Josh spoke to at Broadmeadows police station was unhelpful to deal with. "I told them everything that I had, I gave them a description, I said that we had tracked [the thief] to an address and that it was still updating and that I had him on video doing it," Ms Kitson said.

But the police officer she spoke to "wasn't very nice", she said.

"He didn't seem to be very interested in what we were saying. I don't know if it was because we were young. [But] he sort of gave me the impression that I was lying [and] he said that [he didn't] understand how something like [this could] happen."

Despite this, Ms Kitson said the officer wrote down the information she gave him on a notebook and said that he would send a report to her by Tuesday.

"I was a bit disheartened considering how much we had," she said. "I figured [the information I gave them] would be enough for them to actually do something. I didn't think that I would get my phone back - but at the very least maybe the [thief] would get charged because I heard from people within the shopping centre that he was the common person there that stole a lot of stuff."

Case chased up

Josh "was pretty upset" about the officer's effort, Ms Kitson said. "So he sort of just started chasing it up and ringing up and seeing if it had been reported."

In doing so, she said he "found out that the guy that I had spoken to at the police station had gone on ... leave and hadn't even reported the incident".

"It wasn't even reported yet, which was the very least that we would expect," Ms Kitson claimed, which led her partner to continue to call police, checking up on the case.

"He just kept talking to people and they just kept stuffing him about and saying 'You're just going to have to wait it out,'" she said.

What made it worse for the pair was that the phone was not insured.

Ms Kitson understood there were "more important crimes out there" than a stolen iPhone but believed that with the information she had the case could be closed fairly quickly.

"All the time that this was happening ... the phone was updating the address. And that was horrible because I could see that [a] person had my phone but there was nothing that I could do about it.

"I wasn't about to go to their address and say 'Give me back my phone.'"

The phone had even made its way to a nearby Catholic girls' school, Josh said.

Police complaint made

After dealing with police for a number of days, Josh took the case to the Victoria Police Conduct Unit. "The police were not helping us at all," Ms Kitson said.

After her partner communicated with the unit a number of times, the officer who the couple first dealt with told Josh he had sent a "squad car" to the address where the Google software had located the phone, only to find the address did not exist, Ms Kitson said.

"So Josh went on Google Maps and printed out pictures of the house. He found a real-estate listing of it to prove that it was a real house. I don't know what [the police] were looking at."

They then went to the police station to explain how the Google Latitude software worked and officers were given several photos Josh had of locations to which the phone had been tracked.

"We were taking screenshots every time it updated," Ms Kitson said.

iPhone found

Ten days after the phone was stolen, Josh received a call he wasn't expecting.

"One morning we had a call saying that [the police] had gone to [a] house at 12 o'clock at night and gotten my phone," Ms Kitson said. "Apparently it was a 14-year-old girl who had it."

Ms Kitson said the police informed her the girl had bought the phone for about $80 from a man who they believed stole it from the shop.

The man had apparently taken the iPhone directly to the girl after he stole it, Ms Kitson said police told her.

She described how the girl had left a number of text messages on the phone that indicated the girl knew the phone had been stolen. An online instant messenger program - MSN - was also left signed in.

"I was very shocked that I got my phone back; I wasn't expecting it at all."

Now Ms Kitson has the girl's phone number saved in her contacts under "Idiot Who Bought A Stolen iPhone". The number was made available to Ms Kitson as the girl had sent messages to her friends with the new number she presumably got from buying a new SIM card for the iPhone to work.

"They left messages on there, texting everyone saying they got a new phone but 'I can't tell you where from'."

Ms Kitson said she read many of the messages on the phone, as it was her property, but "didn't do anything mean - though I probably could have".

There were also a number of new purchased apps on the phone.

Victoria Police statement

Victoria Police said it did not immediately investigate the matter due to a staff member being ill and incorrect information provided by Emily. Four days after the initial complaint police said officers went to the address provided as the location of the phone but the address did not exist.

“The investigator was able to determine the correct address, a search warrant was applied for and this was then executed on 30 May resulting in the recovery of the phone,” a Victoria Police spokeswoman said.

Police said the investigation was ongoing and a person had been interviewed and released without charge. The spokeswoman said the Ethical Standards Department was aware of the victim’s concerns over the timeliness of the police response but defended the officers’ actions. They needed to take account for competing priorities and also had to wait for warrants to be granted.

“Victoria Police is satisfied this matter was investigated thoroughly and, within the competing context of policing priorites, a good result was achieved,” the spokeswoman said.

smh.com.au 28 July 2011

Another story with a lot of inaccuracies.

Police are fully aware of the local criminals and what they steal and where they are, but make out as if they do not know who they are.

Police are told by superiors not to pursue 'jobs' that do not bring in revenue.

The prime objective is to bring in revenue to the force.

Fighting crime has nothing to do with it.

Each police officer has to bring in a certain amount of monies for the government in order so they are not a 'liability'.

There is a great emphasis on speeding and other road fines as they are the most profitable for the amount of hours on the job.

The paperwork, and investigative hours used to locate and take a criminal off the street for a 'stolen phone' far exceeds the revenue used that could be raised for obtaining speeding offences.

Telco's can immediately 'brick' a stolen phone and its SIM card, but chose not to, as this also stimulates the sales of more phones.

Telco's and therefore the authorities are fully aware of your location via cell tower triangulation, and the 'find my iphone' app / story while very credible and definitely real, is only part of the truth, to keep the masses deliberately uninformed.

Another lie bought to you by the authorities, to disseminate any truths behind the technology used by governments.

Gizmodo not charged for buying stolen iPhone

Another example of who can get away with a crime and who cannot, depending on your status.

Without going into all the details that 'allegedly' surround the circumstances of the iPhone a brief will be supplied in this post.

• An Apple employee allegedly forgot his iPhone, at a bar.

• This was later picked up by a person who then

• sold it to the tech mag Gizmodo.

It is difficult to imagine that the people involved at Gizmodo had no knowledge that this iPhone, was stolen, or did not actually belong to the seller, given that they are fully aware of the type of product/technology they are dealing with.

Gizmodo has facilitated the sale of stolen property, yet they were immune from prosecution, and instead the individuals that 'found' the phone are under investigation.

Another example of how the legal system favours certain criminals.

from the article:

http://gizmodo.com/5829554

JB Hi Fi speaker stand rip off

Another consumer rip off in the hands of the multinationals.

Many items in the retail stores of the likes of JB Hifi, Dick Smith Electronics, and many others are grossly inflated for higher than 'normal' profit margins.

The item under review in the illustration provided is a pair of speaker stands.

This pair of speaker stands retails at JB HiFi for AU$169.

The same item at other variety stores sells to the public for $10.

The item at JB sells for more than 16 times the value at other stores.

Another example of how globalisation benefits the multinationals and NOT the consumers.

Retail giants are crying poor, that they cannot make 500% markup on some of their products.

They vigorously promote at whopping 30% discount on some items, when still making 200% profit.

Many of these companies also avoid paying tax through various schemes, which are supported by the government, because they provide a service to the community (by employing people).

Why You Don’t Learn Much From Watching TV News

The dismissal of three Channel Nine employees and the resignation of its Queensland news director after fake footage of a “live cross” was broadcast is a timely reminder that television news often ranks being accurate and relevant fairly low on its list of priorities. This is why watching broadcast news is generally a waste of time.

Yesterday, two TV news reporters, a producer and the news director at Channel Nine Queensland got the boot after it emerged that the network’s Brisbane news broadcast had faked footage of a “live cross” to the location where police were searching for the remains of Daniel Morcombe. And Nine did it not just once, but twice. Mumbrella sums up what happened:

In both incidents, viewers were told the chopper was hovering near the search for murdered teenager Daniel Morcombe. In reality it was on the helipad at Nine’s Brisbane HQ, with the lights turned off so viewers could not tell it was on the ground.

After the deception was exposed, reporters Melissa Mallet and Cameron Price and producer Aaron Wakeley were dismissed, and news director Lee Anderson resigned. I feel sorry for those guys, because they got singled out for an extreme example of what TV news broadcasters do all the time: emphasise getting pretty pictures and looking “involved” over actually providing information, context and insight.

The visual imperative

Distant video footage of police roaming through Queensland scrub does absolutely nothing to add to the audience’s understanding of the story. Neither does footage of a helicopter in an area so dark you can’t see anything. But television is a visual medium, and the top priority when compiling news for TV is coming up with new pictures, not new information.

That’s why, for example, TV crews stalked the family of Sydney teenager and collar bomb extortion plot victim Madeleine Pulver for days after her ordeal. The repeated pleas for privacy from the family counted for nothing against the need to get a few seconds of footage for that night’s news.

Australians aren’t very keen on those tactics. A survey of 1200 Australians by ACMA found that around three-quarters objected to the use of hidden cameras or extensive footage of someone grieving. However, our distaste for those approaches doesn’t stop us tuning in. The ACMA study suggested 93 per cent of Australians watch a TV news service at least once a week. The number rises with age, but even amongst 18-24 year olds, the figure was 85 per cent.

Crosses and competition

Running close behind the need for pictures is the desire to make viewers feel that the station in question is deeply invested in the story, which is why the “live cross” is so often used. There’s no obvious way in which hooking up via satellite to a reporter reading from a prepared script adds real value and information to a story. But from a TV network perspective, it has value: it reinforces its own news brand, by promoting the fact that its reporters are “live at the scene”, even if there’s nothing happening at the scene and all the relevant information was unearthed by newspaper reporters or bloggers or summed up in a press release.

Many of the other tricks used by TV news are equally vapid. Given the choice between running vox pop interviews from the public or actually explaining the sources of information used and potential biases involved, TV news will pick “random comment from guy in the street” every time. Sports news is apparently so important that it takes up between a third and a half of every bulletin, and requires a separate person to read the autocue. If a Melbourne station has to choose between reporting on a brawl involving an AFL player and a natural disaster that killed hundreds of people, the drunken jock fight story will win every time.

Competition remains fierce in TV news because masses of Australians watch those broadcasts. The 6pm news broadcasts on Seven and Nine are routinely amongst the top-rated programs of the night, often accounting for more than 2.5 million viewers between them. The ABC news normally adds another million or so, and that’s not counting earlier broadcasts on the commercial networks, SBS World News, or the 24-hour services available through the ABC and Sky.

People choose to watch TV news for a variety of reasons. In many cases, I suspect it’s habit: our parents watched the news at 6pm (or 7pm), so we do the same. We may well view it with a cynical eye, lamenting the emphasis on sport and minor celebrities and the lack of depth when an issue we’re well-informed about gets covered. But if we keep on watching regardless, our criticisms don’t count for anything. As a business, all the networks care about is that we’re watching.

The dominance of TV news is clearly no longer absolute. Many of us (myself included) rely on online sources for news instead. That has its own flaws: a quick scan of the most popular stories list on any news site will demonstrate that the unholy trinity of sex, showbiz and stupidity is just as much in evidence, and the online world is all too often guilty of endlessly repeating information from a single source without checking if it’s true. But at least it doesn’t generally fake “live crosses” to try and establish its trustworthiness.

lifehacker.com.au 26 Aug 2011

POLICE officers are losing identification badges in their hundreds, leading to fears they are being used to commit crimes.

A Herald Sun investigation has found police badges are the most commonly lost piece of unique police equipment, with 547 badges - one a week - reported missing in the past 10 years to July this year.

Victoria Police has refused to explain how large piles of badges vanished on the same day, with as many as 21 reported missing on a single day in 2005.

Security expert Roger Henning said the badges posed a serious threat to the community in the wrong hands.

"Criminals do get their hands on these things, that has been proven time and time again," he said. "It is an extraordinary number of losses. It's a real shock."

Mr Hemming, CEO of the privately run Homeland Security Asia Pacific, said the badges were a highly valued commodity to criminals, particularly members of outlaw motorcycle gangs.

"They have been used by guys to pull over girls driving alone. They have been used for all sorts of nefarious activities," he said.

"Bikies are very, very good at infiltrating law enforcement agencies."

Documents obtained by the Herald Sun under Freedom of Information laws revealed a dozen badges disappeared on April 14 this year, 12 on January 20 last year, 13 on June 29, 2009, and 18 on December 30, 2008.

Police badges have historically been used across the country to commit crimes.

"Catch me if you can" thief Jodie Harris was arrested after using a stolen interstate police badge to fool Victorian police several years ago.

A pile of NSW police uniforms and a police badge were found with a stockpile of weapons including machineguns and tasers during a raid linked to outlaw bikie gangs in May, 2009.

And in July this year, four men allegedly involved in Melbourne's escalating gangland war in the north were charged with impersonating police. It is unknown if they used badges.

Other items police reported missing in the past decade include 145 handcuffs, 111 caps with badges, 39 identification passes, 12 ballistic vests, 159 alcometers, 70 radios, batons, capsicum spray, computers, torches, cameras and a Smith & Wesson revolver, which was later found.

Victoria Police spokeswoman Leonie Johnson said officers were in possession of more than 170,000 items such as handcuffs, equipment belts, caps and identification badges.

"This data shows that the theft or loss of stolen property is minimal, equating to 0.005 per cent of Victoria Police's total assets," Ms Johnson said.

The Herald Sun attempted to find out how many of the missing items had been recovered, and was told by Victoria Police's Freedom of Information department the information did not exist.

But police claim many are recovered.

"Victoria Police has a large recovery rate where lost or stolen items are concerned, particularly in relation to police identification badges," Ms Johnson said.

"Victoria Police treats the theft and loss of police property and equipment with the utmost seriousness and investigates all incidents as per the normal criminal process."

heraldsun.com.au 29 Aug 2011

Police badges are actually sold on the black market for a high price by corrupt police.

There is a market for this commodity, where criminals take crime to the next level.

This fact is well known to government, and has been going on for many more years than the mass media has reported.

In order not to create a panic, and a lack of confidence in the public's eye, again the real figures have been distorted.

Dog in pram important Sunday story

An important news story of the late was run in the Australian Sunday edition of the Herald Sun.

It goes by the title of:

Freed offenders commit 4117 crimes

In the printed version of the newspaper it was a front page article.

In the online version of the Sunday Herald Sun the front page article was an article "Is that a dog in the pram?".

Quite a deviation from the printed version.

Another indication of how the priorities of stories are shown to the public, in a manner if questioned, can be responded to with a 'conspiracy theory' mock.

Freed offenders commit 4117 crimes

VICTORIA Police is concerned that suspected violent criminals are being freed by the courts - despite facing serious charges - and then allegedly committing murder, rape and armed robbery.

An investigation by the Sunday Herald Sun has revealed 6096 suspects were granted bail last year and then went into hiding, missing the date of their court hearing.

And, before arrest warrants for failing to appear in court were executed, 884 of them went on to commit an alleged 4117 new offences.

But Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said there were "clear expectations" on officers to remand anyone in custody who posed a risk to society or was a risk of absconding and he was "confident" this was done in all police cases.

"Ultimately, it's the court's decision and sometimes the courts don't go our way," Mr Cornelius said.

"There are times when we are concerned because of the risk to the public. There are plenty of cases where it might be said they've (the courts) got it wrong."

But Chief Magistrate Ian Gray hit back, suggesting police may have let some of the bail-jumpers go.

"Offending while on bail is a serious issue and the decision to grant bail is made carefully," Mr Gray said.

"It's not clear from these figures how many of these are police bails or court bails - but where it's shown in court that an offender poses an unacceptable risk of reoffending bail will be denied.

"Courts are obliged to apply the law. There is a presumption in favour of granting bail unless an accused needs to show cause or show exceptional circumstances."

Mr Cornelius cited the release of captured drug kingpin Tony Mokbel, who subsequently fled to Greece while on bail and was on the run for more than a year before being rearrested and extradited back to Melbourne.

"I hope that Mokbel would be one case that would provide a source of reflection for our judicial colleagues," he said.

The statistics were obtained under Freedom of Information requests over several months.

Police would not reveal the identities of the alleged murderer and other criminals who reoffended while at large.

Mr Cornelius revealed a newly published six-month performance report flagged outstanding warrants as an issue and that police statewide would now be conducting regular operations.

"If a suspect has made a decision to skip bail and not turn up to court it's likely they have also made arrangements to go to ground and not be found," Mr Cornelius said, explaining why suspects were not located straight away.

"The volume of warrants is going up because courts are dishing out more each day, while we are still trying to find the ones we already have.

"It's on our radar. Our focus is on outstanding warrants and we need to pay a great deal of attention to it."

All officers are notified of a warrant if they happen to stop a person for any reason and run a check on their name.

The police's job becomes harder if the suspect moves to another suburb, interstate or even overseas.

"The impetus and motivation is very much there to catch everyone who is wanted on a warrant," Mr Cornelius said.

"For every crime there is a victim and if we don't have the accused there is a victim out there not getting justice.

"The 4117 figure is a number that serves a reminder to Victoria Police to pay attention to this matter."

The Justice Department refused to comment on the issue this week after being asked on Wednesday.

heraldsun.com.au 28 Aug 2011

Another example where 'Laws for Criminals' prevails.

Corrupt judges and police let the criminals out for various reasons.

The underlying reason is so that there will be unrest amongst the general community.

One policy of governance is to have the masses squabble amongst themselves and waste energy on petty issues, so that the broader picture is not seen, one being that of total control of the population's movements.