Telstra loses court battle over tech sharing

Telstra has lost a High Court case in which it argued it was being unfairly treated by having to share its equipment with its competitors.

Telstra took action against the Federal Government, as well as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and 11 telecommunications companies.

The telco argued that giving its competitors access to its equipment amounted to an acquisition of its property.

Telstra said that this acquisition had to be on just terms as stipulated in the Australian Constitution.

In a unanimous ruling, the High Court has dismissed the case.

The court ruled that the access regime set out in the Trade Practices Act did not mean that Telstra's property was being acquired.

Telstra spokesman Jeremy Mitchell says the ACCC is a rogue government agency which is redistributing the company's investments.

"Under the ACCC's regime, Telstra has to sell some of its services for less than $3, in fact $2.50," he said.

"Now, you can't even get into a taxi cab for that amount.

"The ACCC expects us to deliver broadband on those sort of figures."

The ACCC has welcomed today's High Court ruling.

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel says the ruling is a significant one which will remove uncertainty.

"What it does is to make it absolutely clear that part 11c of the Trade Practices Act - and specifically its application to the unconditioned local loop service and the line sharing service - is constitutionally valid," he said.

abc.net, 6 March 2008

Facebook - the CIA conspiracy

American Dad's conspiracy coverage could benefit from a flick through the Facebook.

Facebook has 20 million users worldwide, is worth billions of dollars and, if internet sources are to be believed, was started by the CIA.

The social networking phenomenon started as a way of American college students to keep in touch. It is rapidly catching up with MySpace, and has left others like Bebo in its wake.

But there is a dark side to the success story that's been spreading across the blogosphere. A complex but riveting Big Brother-type conspiracy theory which links Facebook to the CIA and the US Department of Defence.

The CIA is, though, using a Facebook group to recruit staff for its very sexy sounding National Clandestine Service.

Checking out the job ads
does require a Facebook login, so if you haven't joined the site - or are worried that CIA spooks will start following you home from work -check them out on the agency's own site.

The story starts once Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had launched, after the dorm room drama that's led to the current court case.

Facebook's first round of venture capital funding ($US500,000) came from former Paypal CEO Peter Thiel. Author of anti-multicultural tome 'The Diversity Myth', he is also on the board of radical conservative group VanguardPAC.

The second round of funding into Facebook ($US12.7 million) came from venture capital firm Accel Partners. Its manager James Breyer was formerly chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, and served on the board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999. One of the company's key areas of expertise are in "data mining technologies".

Breyer also served on the board of R&D firm BBN Technologies, which was one of those companies responsible for the rise of the internet.

Dr Anita Jones joined the firm, which included Gilman Louie. She had also served on the In-Q-Tel's board, and had been director of Defence Research and Engineering for the US Department of Defence.

She was also an adviser to the Secretary of Defence and overseeing the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is responsible for high-tech, high-end development.

It was when a journalist lifted the lid on the DARPA's
Information Awareness Office that the public began to show concern at its information mining projects.

Matt Greenop, nzherald.co.nz 08 Aug 2007

ICAC seeks sacking of Wollongong Council

The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has recommended Wollongong Council be sacked.

The corruption watchdog has been investigating 14 people in a probe into planning practises at the NSW council, including allegations of sex and bribery for developments.

ICAC Commissioner Jerrold Cripps QC said he had formed the opinion there was "systemic corruption" at the council and that prompt action was required to remedy that.

"I have come to the conclusion that it is appropriate to make this declaration and I do so," he told the inquiry.

Mr Cripps said the recommendation should not be taken as casting suspicion on councillors who were not named as persons of interest in the inquiry.

Councillors Val Zanotto and Frank Gigliotti are persons of interest to the inquiry, while Zeki Esen and deputy mayor Kiril Jonovski were added to that list after being named during the hearings.

Mr Zanotto, who had refused to stand down from the council, took a voluntary leave of absence after Friday's ICAC hearings, the inquiry was told.

Wollongong MP Noreen Hay was stood down from her position as parliamentary secretary for health on Friday, after it emerged she agreed to lobby Wollongong city councillors on behalf of developer Frank Vellar, who is also being scrutinised by the corruption watchdog.

NSW Premier Morris Iemma earlier on Monday pledged immediate action if Mr Cripps found the council should be sacked.

"If he makes the recommendation for them to be sacked, they'll be sacked immediately," he told reporters at Warragamba, west of Sydney.

Soon after the ICAC announcement, Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said it was "simply unacceptable" for Wollongong council to continue in its current mode.

"You can't have a Wollongong council operating properly with people sitting on it who have such enormous question marks over them."

Mar 3, ©AAP 2008

News media misinformation

NRL player shot at in Kings Cross

Monday Mar 3 09:37 AEDT

NRL star dodges bullet

Monday Mar 3 11:00 AEDT

Same story, same url, http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=227449

Victoria’s Water Shortage

When we think of deserts we may, have a vision of the Sahara, the Arabia, and the Gobi in China, depending on how geographically aware one is. We normally associate desert with heat, whereas its actual definition lies within the lack of rainfall. Antarctica is also one of the world’s largest deserts.

In Australia, we have the Great Victoria, the Great Sandy, the Gibson and the Simpson deserts. It is no secret that Australia is one of the driest continents in the world. No doubt Burke and Wills would attest to this. There are naturally areas of high rainfall, but are not in the areas where the majority of the population exists.

After the colonisation of the various states of Australia, the government set up the various water authorities within each state. The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) was created in 1891, to look after the building and supply of water to the city of Melbourne and its surrounds. Later in the 20^th Century it was also responsible for the planning of major roads and arterials. It was later ‘corporatised’ in 1991.

From the MMBW’s inception Melbourne’s water was catered for by the building of storage facilities and dams with respect to the size and needs of the population. Sylvan, Cardinia, Maroondah, are some of the major projects undertaken, with the Thompson being the last.

In the seventies there have been times of water shortage, and the watering of gardens was possible on even week days. In the eighties, the MMBW’s campaign was to “Use Water Wisely”. In the nineties there were also times of water shortage. In recent times, from the 2000’s onwards, we can easily recall times of water shortage. Every decade has had its shortage of water. In the media there is always the mention of the drought. It is therefore of no surprise to the authorities that we live on a dry continent.

Since the trend in global politics is to privatise all government utilities, it is therefore inevitable that most or all of our utilities will be in control of private hands, and possibly in theory in the control of one company. The effects of a monopoly have been proven many times over to be detrimental to the general populous, examples of which are beyond the scope of this document. In the US, laws prevent monopolies from operating. No such laws exist here in Australia.

One solution that the government proposes is one that is cheap and takes away any onus away from it. It’s one that it actively promotes within the media, “Every household a dam”. This directly places the onus on the household owner, where previously this was in the care of the government. There has been no onus laws put forward as the government proposes. In the seventies people who wanted to put in water tanks were forbidden by their local councils, as this would take away revenue from the infrastructure. Currently people who have registered their water tanks, have a higher water bill than prior to registration.

Another solution proposed by the government is that of a desalination plant. Several desalination plants exist in Western Australia, and have been operational for many years.

In countries like Greece and Malta, desalination plants have existed for a long time. The government claims that it is an expensive proposition, but those countries have managed despite a lower GDP per capita than Australia. In this situation the Victorian government, again has been retro - active. The works will be tendered out to a private company, and the price of water will rise significantly. Currently the government sells water to Coca Cola for $1.40 per million litres, whilst the average household payed $0.80 per 1000 litres or over 570 times more than Coca Cola.

In the last generation, there has been an approximate increase in population of 30% in Victoria. Since the ‘corporitisation’ of the water authority in Melbourne, there have not been any new sites developed for water storage or damming. Together with climate change, it is of no surprise that we are currently facing a water shortage. Therefore the direct responsibility for failure to provide the population with adequate water lies within the government.

Australian homes 'among world's least affordable'

Australian and New Zealand homes are the least affordable in the English-speaking world, according to a US-based survey of 227 cities.
The 2008 Demographia study of international housing affordability listed 18 Australian cities in its top 50 of severely unaffordable markets.
The study rates housing affordability in the English-speaking nations of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, UK and Ireland.
The least affordable city in Australia is Mandurah (sixth-least affordable overall), south of Perth, where houses cost 9.5 times a household's average annual income, with Sydney (8.6), Perth (7.6) and Melbourne (7.3) in 11th, 19th and 22nd place overall.
Demographia rates a city's housing market "affordable" when the cost of an average home is three (or less) times average household income, "unaffordable" for four times the average and "seriously unaffordable" for five times.
The Property Council of Australia said state governments needed to release more land, cut back on developer taxes and reduce red tape.
"Australia's dismal performance highlights the need to reverse the policies that created today's artificially inflated house prices", council chief executive Peter Verwer said.
"The survey backs the property council's view that the affordability crisis is caused by land rationing, excessive development charges and dysfunctional development assessment.
"The response of some state governments shows the message is getting through, however, the survey results show more urgent action is required.
"The new Rudd government has demonstrated much needed leadership in committing to five major programs aimed at improving housing affordability."
Only US and Canadian cities featured in the top 50 affordable cities, including Dallas and Kansas in the US and Quebec in Canada.
"The survey tells us there are plenty of affordable cities in the world, it's just that none of them are in Australia", Mr Verwer said.
"On average, Australian families are forced to spend 6.1 times their entire household income to buy a typical home compared with 3.1 times in Canada and 3.6 times in the US, and that's before interest charges."
The survey found the top five least affordable cities in the world included four Californian cities led by Los Angeles, along with Salinas, San Francisco and San Diego with Honolulu in Hawaii coming in at number four.
The survey can be found at www.demographia.com.

©AAP 2008

Substitute suds scam hits Omo

A FATHER and son will face court in Sydney today, charged with importing and selling tonnes of counterfeit Omo washing powder.

The registered owner of Omo, Unilever Australia, referred the matter to Australian Federal Police after discovering retailers in Sydney were selling 9kg buckets of Omo marked ``Made in Indonesia'' for $25.

The genuine product sells for between $35 and $40 and is made in New Zealand.

Further investigation found three companies were involved in the importation and sale of the alleged counterfeit washing powder originating from China.

It will be alleged that between March 2006 and August 2007 about 185 tonnes of counterfeit product - washing powder and buckets - were imported into Australia.

Two men, aged 53 and 32 were charged on summons with selling goods with a falsely applied trade mark.

If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of two years jail and/or a fine up to $55,000.

Robyn Ironside, news.com.au February 11, 2008

Trujillo trumpets mobile leadership

A SLEW of new handsets, an upstart operating system and a battle over wireless technologies dominated the massive GSMA mobile conference in Barcelona last week.

With carrier revenue streams shifting from voice calls to data, the show, which attracted more than 55,000 people, was filled with demonstrations of what shape mobile communications will take in the next couple of years.

Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo used a number of high-profile speaking engagements to trumpet the company's Next G network, announcing plans to boost peak data speeds to 42 megabits per second by 2009 and 100 Mbps after that.

"We all remember the days we first rolled out 3G and most of us are still yawning - we didn't see much change in consumer behaviour," he said. "We took a billion dollar bet to change that."

Speaking to The Australian IT, Mr Trujillo said the industry now regarded Australia as a world leader in mobile services. "People are busy talking about the US, Europe, India and China, but we are now leading the world in this wireless phase," he said.

He said the company would continue working with vendor partner Ericsson to upgrade the network using HSPA+ and an emerging technology called LTE (Long Term Evolution) that would eventually deliver speeds of more than 100 Mbps.

Mr Trujillo said he had spent considerable time at the GSMA event looking for new services that could be rolled out by Telstra to take advantage of the planned speed increases on the network.

"There are some exciting things here in terms of delivery of content," he said. "We are starting to see the integration, not just of pre-packaged, but also self-generated content. It's going to be very interesting."

Supporters of the LTE broadband technology chosen by Telstra used the show to highlight what they say are its significant advantages over rival standard WiMax. WiMax proponent Intel used its stand to extol the virtues of the technology, emphasising that it was already commercially available and being rolled out by carriers around the world.

Ian Grayson, AustralianIT February 19, 2008

Smile, you're on speed camera

One of NSW's biggest revenue sources is under threat, as Patrick Carlyon reports.

It doesn’t make much sense to dispute a speed camera fine of a few hundred dollars when a lawyer, such as Sydney’s Dennis Miralis, charges $1650 to appear in court to defend you. To lose would be to multiply the expense. And, anyway, why challenge technological evidence considered almost indisputable? The camera never lies, does it? Last year, in a public relations disaster, a fixed camera on Melbourne’s western ring road was proved to be inaccurate, costing the Bracks government at least $13m in repaid fines, and perhaps tens of millions more in lost revenue. The unlikely crusader was Vanessa Bridges, a student in a Datsun 120Y that could barely outrun a mangy dog.

Now, in NSW, a different flaw has been revealed in the unpopular technology. The crusader in this instance is Miralis, whose defence of little people against the previously indefensible has been likened to Tiriel Mora’s lawyer in The Castle. Some have called it a technicality. But Miralis describes his magistrate’s court victory last week as a precedent that questions the validity of all fixed speed camera fines in NSW. Miralis got off a driver (who also won $3300 in costs) because the police could not prove that the details of the photo of the driver’s apparently speeding car had not been tampered with.

Miralis researched the algorithm code, such as time of day, place and speed, used to authenticate camera images after getting off another driver last November. In that instance, Miralis showed that necessary symbols of the algorithm, as required by law, were missing. He then discovered that researchers from a Chinese university had figured out how to break the security code, known as MD5, and theoretically alter the logged details. Miralis found MD5 was little used overseas any more. It was the basis for his successful defence on August 9.

Despite eight weeks’ leave from the magistrate, the Roads and Traffic Authority failed to produce an expert witness to testify to MD5’s safeguards. The next morning, Miralis had 400 calls in two hours from drivers nabbed by speed cameras. He expects to be interviewing prospective clients most of this week. “People are very angry about it,” he says. “Some have paid fines because they haven’t been able to pay for a defence.”

Miralis says the RTA (and its equivalents in other states) have relied on drivers’ natural reluctance to contest fines. The NSW government has admitted little, but like all state governments, it has much to fear from the verdict. As with poker machines, the governments rely on growing revenues from speeding drivers. In Victoria, speed cameras were collecting up to $176m a year before last year’s fiasco. Given that state’s stricter enforcement of limits, and escalating fine scales, many wonder whether road safety has been pipped by revenue-raising as the higher priority. Similar objections were raised last year in South Australia, when plans to install cameras in wheelie bins were released.

Yet Ian Johnston, of Monash University’s Accident Research Centre, believes the speed camera’s place in road safety is assured. He argues that the reduced road toll in Victoria, where fixed cameras are unmarked, reflects their safety credentials. The introduction of more secret cameras three years ago saw the number of fines in Victoria rise to 90,000 a year. Numbers are now back to about 50,000, he says. During the same period, the road toll has dropped 30%. “The theory is that you have to create uncertainty in the mind of the driver,” he says. “Drivers have to have a high chance of getting caught.”

Perhaps in NSW, given Miralis’ research, drivers may now also have a high chance of getting off.

Bulletin, 17 August 2005

Serial bullies …Women who make life hell at work

Think bullying only happens in the playground? Nuh-uh. The workplace she-bully is alive, well and raising hell. By Sarah Marinos Sally*, 27, manages a women's clothing store in Melbourne — with military discipline. Her staff don't stay long. She screams at her all-female workforce, ridicules them and expects them to work through their lunch hour or stay late to attend meetings where she usually criticises their work. If Sally isn't criticising, she's giving a worker the silent treatment. She sweeps into the store and says hello to everyone but her victim. The victim is left out of shop gossip and Sally might even begin a vicious rumour about them.

"One of my previous staff members was such a lazy cow. I constantly had to tell her how to do her job. Eventually I took her out the back of the store and let her have it," says Sally.

"I said that if she wanted to succeed in life she had to be smarter. I also told her she was too fat. She was a size 16, for god's sake. I'm sure she put off customers when they came into the store. Who wants to be served by someone wearing a potato sack? I know what I said sounds harsh, but I was telling her for her own good."

Last year, Sally slapped a 17-year-old Saturday girl who dared to answer back when Sally accused her of taking five minutes extra for her lunch.

"I know she was five minutes late because every time staff leave the store they have to ask me first and I note down the time," says Sally. "I told her she'd have to stay back after work and she said no. I saw red. Her smug little 17-year-old know-it-all face pissed me right off, so I slapped her. She looked pretty shocked and left the following week.

"There was nobody around when I slapped her, so if she complained it would be my word against hers, and I've been with the company for eight years. Who are the bosses going to believe? Me, who runs one of the company's most profitable stores, or some 17-year-old airhead?"

Bullying: the hidden torment
Sadly, Sally's staff aren't the only victims. New research has found that 70 percent of Australians are being bullied in the workplace, or have been bullied in the past. And don't think it's just about the young male apprentice who gets his head flushed down the toilet. Bullying happens in all industries, at all levels and it's not an all-male affair. Women are just as likely as men to bully at work. Studies by Job Watch, an employment legal advisory service in Melbourne, has found the retail, health and hospitality industries are riddled with she-bullies like Sally. In the past year, the organisation received more than 1000 complaints of workplace bullying — two-thirds of the calls came from women victims aged between 25 and 34 — and many of those were victims of a she-bully.

"There are a lot of women suffering in silence at the hands of other women," says Zana Bytheway, executive director of Job Watch. "In some cases, bullying happens because people love the sense of power it gives them. It's about ego. In other cases, I think bullying happens because people are under so much pressure. They have to do more in less time and with less staff. Productivity, profits, pressure. It's a potent mix.

"We spend the bulk of our time at work and work plays a huge part in how we see ourselves and how we value ourselves. I've seen women give up their careers, develop stress and anxiety problems, lose their confidence, lose their relationship and even become suicidal because they are bullied by another woman at work. It's a very serious, sinister and under-estimated problem."

Amanda*, 35, is a senior manager in a small company in Adelaide. She's been in her current job for just over three years and has been bullied for most of that time by another senior manager, a woman 10 years older than her.

"She's always been volatile and aggressive, but when I won an award for my work, she spat at me and said 'That's outrageous'," recalls Amanda. "Then she began a whispering campaign. She suggested to my superiors and colleagues that I wasn't capable of doing my job. Behind my back she grabbed every opportunity to run me down. She deliberately failed to pass on information I needed to do my job so I looked like an idiot at meetings; I wouldn't have a clue what everyone was talking about.

Amanda would tremble whenever she received an e-mail or phone call from her she-bully. The bully played with her nerves by alternating between nice and nasty. Amanda drove to work never knowing what to expect next.

"It was like domestic violence. One day she screamed and told me how hopeless I was. The next day she talked to me in a cutesy voice and asked for my help," says Amanda. This year, Amanda saw a psychologist because the bullying pushed her to breaking point. "I thought I was going to crack. I was physically and emotionally exhausted.

"My psychologist helped me develop skills to cope with her. Now when she rages, I don't react. Because she doesn't get a reaction, it's not as much fun for her. I've also stood up for myself more. I've told her I'm aware of the things she says behind my back and I've told my bosses what's been going on. They haven't done anything to stop her, though, and I did think about leaving my job but why should I go? Then she wins."

So, what's the appeal?
New research has also found that there's not just one kind of workplace bully. According to Keryl Egan, a Sydney-based clinical psychologist, bullies fall into three main categories: accidental, destructive and serial. The accidental bully is aggressive, intelligent, confident and successful and expects a lot of the people working around them. They don't listen to others, always feel they're right and, when the pressure is on, they lose their temper — but have no idea how their behaviour hurts the people around them. In other words, their bullying is not premeditated. "The destructive bully is narcissistic. They see any competition or threat as a serious assault and they go into a rage," says Egan. "They feel entitled to positions of power." So they bully because they can.

However, the most worrying workplace bully is the serial, or psychopathic, bully — and it seems women are particularly effective at this kind of behaviour. They intentionally hurt colleagues and revel in the pain they cause. "The psychopathic bully is very good at showing one face to the boss and another face to the people below them," explains Egan. Her research says it can take two years for a psychopathic workplace bully to be exposed.

"They isolate their target so that person doesn't have a support network. They manipulate the victim's workload and working conditions and make unrealistic demands and unpredictable decisions. One minute they praise, and the next minute they criticise. They isolate or ignore their victim and the bullying is systematic and relentless. They have a complete lack of empathy."

Egan says most people become psychopathic bullies because of a damaged childhood. They've usually been bullied themselves by uncaring parents or been emotionally neglected. They're incapable of having compassion for anyone else because they didn't receive love and care themselves.

Sally says whenever she's been generous in life people have taken advantage of her. "Sometimes I feel bad when I see the girls at work in tears. I see how they look at me when I arrive at work — they're afraid — but if they're afraid of me, they're not going to take advantage of me. Being soft doesn't get you anywhere."
*Names have been changed.

msn 24 October, 2006