Australia as 'democratic' as Botswana, yes really!

Australia's 'democracy' is an artifact of the past as it technically lives in the museum, the "Museum of Australian Democracy" in the old parliament house to be more precise.

When you take your children or grandchildren to a museum you show them 'things' that were in the past, e.g. dinosaurs, 'classic' cars etc

So, when you enter the old parliament house you can reminisce what 'democracy' looked like in Australia, 'cause that ain't today's reality!

See article from 9 Dec 2019 by sbs of the headline:

Australia is now in line with the United States, Ghana and Botswana in terms of civil freedoms.


Updated 09/12/2019 By Velvet Winter

An annual report on the civil rights of countries worldwide has downgraded Australia’s democracy from “open” to “narrowed”.

The CIVICUS Monitor is a collaboration between human rights organisations around the world, to assess the democratic freedoms of 196 countries.

In the 2019 report, Australia’s democratic ‘status’  dropped. This was due to recent police raids on media outlets, the growing trend of prosecuting whistleblowers like Witness K - and the increasing crackdown on peaceful protest.

The CIVICUS Monitor combines several different sources of data looking at things like the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and ‘expression’. 

Countries are then given a ranking ranging from closed, repressed, obstructed, narrowed or open.

See the monitor at: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/australia-s-democracy-has-been-downgraded-from-open-to-narrowed?fbclid=IwAR2zIS0i5pP334LlcpMDviJu7wPnbh9FHFqNTQ17JhJEWctLDzwRUXJZ2Kw

“All of these restrictive policies add up. We need to draw a line in the sand and say ‘enough’,” said the Centre’s Campaigns Director Tom Clarke.

 “Powerful politicians and their corporate backers don’t always respect the rights of individual people or communities,” he warned.

We need to create an Australian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to help level the playing field.

The 2019 report took particular aim at legislation passed by Australian parliament this year that allows law enforcement authorities to force tech companies to hand over user information - even if it is protected by end-to-end encryption.

The report’s assessment of the Australian civic space is echoed in public opinion, with just 59 percent of Australian’s saying they are satisfied with how democracy is working.

Australia is one of three countries that were downgraded in the Asia Pacific region in 2019, with India and Brunei going from obstructed to repressed.

In wider regions, Malta joined Australia in declining from an ‘open’ civic space to a ‘narrowed’ civic space.

The report also found that the percentage of the world’s population living in a ‘repressed’ democracy doubled in the last 12 months, to 40 per cent.

Countries categorised as ‘open’ decreased in the past year from 4 per cent in 2018 to 3 per cent in 2019.

As part of the research CIVICUS published a ‘watch list’ - countries where citizen’s rights are being actively infringed upon. Making the selection for 2019 were Colombia, Egypt, Guinea and Kazakhstan. 

China was highlighted for the ongoing conflict in Hong Kong over the proposed extradition bill, and the continued mistreatment of protestors and journalists.

There were several brighter spots in this year’s report. Dominican Republic and Moldova were both updated in terms of civic freedom from ‘obstructed’ to ‘narrowed’.

Government logic; Electricity down, call us re your cashless card

Things are done differently in the land called ‘down under’, a colony of the Monarch who is currently having issues with Her insubordinate grandchild (PMSL).

The colonialists (in government) have this mentality from their ancestors that stems back to 1788, where the population at large is considered to be criminals, either past present or future.

With the advent of electricity, it became easier to ‘administer’ the convicts where today a cashless society (Indue welfare card) is being imposed on the serfs, for the cheaper and quicker ‘administration’ of those pesky tax slaves who pay the taxes large corporations dodge.

The colonialists who have limited mental capacity (see picture below) ‘forget’ that with the lack of electricity, ‘cashless’ terminals do not work, where it is generally accepted that you cannot call your local welfare ‘business’ to spot (lend) you some cash’, noting that mobile tower and landline exchanges have limited offline electricity run time.

See text version of article from 9 Jan 2020 of the by sbs of the headline:

Calls for people on welfare in bushfire-affected areas to be exempt from cashless card 

Welfare agencies say people in bushfire affected areas need to be able to withdraw cash, but the government says no one relying on a cashless debit card has been impacted by the disaster.
Updated 4 hours ago, By Rosemary Bolger

Anglicare Australia has called for welfare recipients in bushfire-affected areas to receive their payments directly, rather than have to use the cashless debit card.

In places where the cashless debit card has been rolled out, 80 per cent of a person's income can be stored on the device, known as an Indue card, preventing purchases of alcohol and gambling.

One of the trial sites is Ceduna in South Australia where bushfires triggered a power outage to 25,000 customers on New Year's Eve.

Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said it was unrealistic to expect people to rely on the card in areas where the power has been cut.

"People must be able to get essential supplies to live and adapt in the wake of the bushfires. With the power out and many outlets closed, people must be able to withdraw cash," Ms Chambers said.

But a spokesperson for Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said there had been no impact on terminal availability in trial sites as a result of the fires.

"The department continues to actively monitor the situation and will ensure that cashless debit card trial participants have access to their funds should there be an emergency situation in any of the trial sites."

Other trial sites in East Kimberley and the Goldfields in Western Australia, and Hervey Bay in Queensland are far from the bushfires.

Anyone travelling to bushfire-hit areas is encouraged to call the cashless debit card hotline for assistance.

Earlier this week, Centrelink advised people on the cashless welfare card to call them if they have been affected by fires. 

Ms Chambers said that’s not good enough.

"With the power out and phones unavailable, contacting Centrelink is just not an option for people in the thick of the crisis. The card must be suspended indefinitely."

Ms Chambers said Anglicare had been contacted by several people, some who had been visiting friends and families in bushfire-hit regions, who had had problems using their cashless debit card.

"It's really an inconvenience at best, huge difficulty at worst on top of an already chaotic situation when you haven't got access to pure cash to buy food.

"This is an extreme example, but it does bring home that real inconvenience and lack of dignity."

On Monday, one social media user asked how someone on the cashless welfare card was expected to feed their family.

"Are they just expected to die?" they tweeted.

In response, Centrelink said: "If anyone is in that situation, they should let us know."

The government has deployed mobile service centres to the NSW's South Coast and East Gippsland in Victoria to assist Centrelink customers in those bushfire affected regions.

On Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that job seekers in fire-affected regions would be exempted from mutual obligation requirements for at least two months.

A spokesperson for the Employment Department said they were working to implement appropriate arrangements and to identify areas in which they will apply.

Will a Royal Commission into the bushfires mention this?

That’s right if it was to be held, will a Royal Commission into the bush fires mention a post from the ‘Corporate Australia’ site?

More importantly will the Royal Commission address the law contained within the meme within a post within the site?

That’s right, the people in government in Victoria have been able to make it rain ‘legally’ since 1967.

So why have there been so many so called ‘droughts’ throughout the years, when the people in government can literally make it rain?

This law is current as of this post,

and is available for your perusal at:

http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/legis/vic/consol_act/rca1967198/ 

See the 'Rain-Making Control Act 1967' within the post below, which is different to the current one within the Austlii reference above:

Chemtrails in Victoria since 1967

Chinese manufacturer adds spyware to smart phones

So, this is how they do it:

Companies like Foxtel, Google and now Realme get you hooked on their product, where no advertisements or low cost is the emphasis or the reason to purchase it.

They then add 'spyware' for the purpose of providing a 'better end-user experience' or whatever other BS term the marketing department can come up with.

We should all know how competitive the Chinese are, or rather how good they are copying, and not wanting to be outdone by the five eyes surveillance network, they want a slice of the "surveil the shit outta everyone" pie too, by installing 'adware' on Realme branded smartphones.

See article from 31 Dec 2019 by 9TO5Google of the headline:

Realme is bringing ads to its ColorOS Android skin after a year of huge growth

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Ads in software are a great source of revenue for companies, but it’s usually something that users don’t appreciate. This week, Realme announced that it would be bringing ads to ColorOS following a year of massive growth in the Android market.


Realme, for those unaware, is a popular Android smartphone maker, especially in India. We haven’t covered Realme much, but in 2019, the company managed 400% year over year growth which saw it take the #4 spot in India behind Xiaomi, Samsung, and Vivo. Part of that growth is thanks to Realme’s value on its smartphones which are usually priced lower than the comparable competition.

Going into 2020, Realme wants to “continue offering more surprises” by bringing “content recommendations” to its ColorOS skin over Android. Essentially, Realme is bringing ads to its software in order to help maintain a “healthy and sustainable business model” going forward.

This change will affect devices running ColorOS 6 and the ads on Realme devices will appear in two different places. The first is in the Phone Manager app while the second is on the Security Check page. The ads are enabled by default, but Realme users can disable them by going to Settings > Additional Settings > Content Recommendation and toggling the “feature” off.

Ironically, Realme made fun of Xiaomi earlier this year (via Android Authority) over ads that Xiaomi placed within MIUI, even showing it as a selling point of the Realme 3.

Why you should stay away from cheap Chinese phones (and cameras)

It's bad enough that the general population has to contend with 'Team America - World Police's', "we're gonna surveil the shit outta ya" policy which is monetised via something called surveillance capitalism, but also the commies/socialists are in on the act as well.

From [well known] spying 'digital assistants' humans willingly introduce into their homes to mobile phones, cameras and now [hackable] IoT (Internet of Things) devices, not forgetting cashless transactions they LOVE their self sponsored (government/corporation) spying devices.

Here are a couple of articles that highlight the dangers:

How to keep yourself safe from Chinese spyware on budget Android phones
By Kyle Wiggers August 1, 2017 10:59AM PST

The last thing you want your smartphone doing is sending your text messages, contacts, and location history to a server in China. But according to mobile security firm Kryptowire, a particularly nasty brand of Android software did just that, transmitting text, data, call, location, and app data to a Chinese server every 72 hours.

Researchers began to raise red flags last fall, when it was discovered the the data mining tool in question — called Adups — had been living inside hundreds of millions of devices produced by more than 40 manufacturers. Florida-based Blu Products was one of the affected parties, and assured at the time that the problem had been identified and every trace of the spyware had been removed from its phones.

Now, nearly 10 months since the initial report, Amazon has suspended the sale of several Blu devices from its Prime Exclusive lineup over re-emerging security concerns. Kryptowire appeared at July’s Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas to say the spyware still existed on some of Blu’s current phones, which led to Amazon’s decision the following week.

The code, which comes preinstalled on certain Android devices, sends the data surreptitiously. “Even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t have known about it,” Kryptowire vice president of product Tom Karygiannis told The New York Times last year.

How to know if you’ve been affected, and what to do

An investigation conducted by mobile security researchers at Trustlook in December found that as many as 43 manufacturers, including brands like Lenovo and Gionee, contained similar spyware. According to the firm’s report, the software collects serial numbers, software version numbers, operator information, and texting and call data from infected phones; the company found traces in All Win Tech smartphones in Taiwan, Archos devices in France, DEXP phones in Russia, and Prestigio hardware in the Czech Republic.
Here’s a list of manufacturers with affected devices:

Aaron Electronics Aeon Mobile All Win Tech Amoi Technology Archos AUX Bird BLU Cellon Coship Mobile Cubot Mobile DEWAV Communication DEXP Digital Experience Eastaeon Technology Electronic Technology

Gionee GOSO Hisense Hongyu Huaqin Huiye Inventec Corporation Konka Group Lenovo Logicom Longcheer Malata Mobile Mediatek Helio Prestigio Ragentek

RDA Micro Reallytek RUIO Sanmu Sprocomm Tinno Uniscope VSUN Water World Technology Wind Communication WingTech Yifang Digital Zhuhai Quanzhi ZTE

At this time, there’s no sure way to know if Adups is sending your personal information. However, some phone makers use Adups, rather than Google, to push over-the-air system updates, which is a clear indicator that the software is at least present on your device. The offending file, com.adups.fota, typically appears as “System Update” or “Wireless Update” within your phone’s list of apps in the settings menu. These are system apps, so they cannot be uninstalled — though they can be disabled. At the moment, disabling is the only known way to prevent Adups from running without rooting or installing custom firmware, which are riskier measures that will void your manufacturer’s warranty.

In November, Trustlook updated its Antivirus & Mobile Security app on the Google Play Store to check for Adups’ presence. The firm says it has updated the app continually to search for new Adups system programs linked to data collection as they’ve been discovered.

Specific phones known to include Adups more recently are the Blu Grand M and Cubot X16S. In addition to discovering the spyware in those two devices, Kryptowire’s Ryan Johnson told CNET he hasn’t found it in any handsets priced over $300. Additionally, only MediaTek chipsets have thus far been linked to the scheme. It would seem Adups is targeting low-cost hardware, predominantly from manufacturers that don’t sell phones in the U.S.

For those reasons, at this time we recommend staying away from budget smartphones powered by MediaTek processors built by any of the companies listed above.

Where it came from

The spyware is the product of Chinese firm Shanghai Adups Technology Company, and it targeted more than 700 million low-end Android devices. Adups said it worked with phone makers like Huawei and ZTE to develop the tool to monitor user behavior — ostensibly to identify junk text messages and calls.

But the software was never intended for American phones. An apparent bug caused more than 120,000 phones sold by Blu to become infected with the Adups tool. “Blu Products has identified and has quickly removed a recent security issue caused by a third-party application which has been collecting unauthorized personal data in the form of text messages, call logs, and contacts from customers using a limited number of Blu mobile devices,” a spokesperson for the company said in November.

In Blu’s case, the malware appears to have originated from a seemingly innocuous support app. Adups provides a utility that manufacturers use to perform remote firmware updates. “It was obviously something that we were not aware of,” Samuel Ohev-Zion, Blu’s chief executive, told The New York Times.

Blu claims Adups disregarded its request not to mine users’ data. “We have an email history with Adups saying we did not want that functionality on our devices, and they violated our request,” Ohev-Zion told PCMag. The company retained the services of Kryptowire to “keep tabs” on its software for a year, and partnered with chipmaker MediaTek to ensure its phones receive up-to-date, “clean” versions of Android.

Adups said that it had destroyed all information collected from Blu phones. “Today there is no Blu device that is collecting that information,” Ohev-Zion said last year. Now, Kryptowire is claiming that statement is false, while Blu maintains the situation has been dealt with. Meanwhile, an Adups spokeswoman told CNET all issues were resolved in 2016 and no longer exist.

It is not the first time Adups has raised the ire of an American tech company. Google, Android’s primary developer, instructed the Chinese firm to remove its surveillance tools from phones that shipped with the Google Play Store.

It is unclear precisely which devices are vulnerable. So far, the company has declined to publish a list of affected phones and said that there was not an easy way for customers to determine whether or not their devices contained Adups’ monitoring software. A representative for the company told The New York Times that it was incumbent on phone manufacturers, not Adups, to inform users that their personal information was being collected.

ZTE USA released a statement to press in November. “We confirm that no ZTE devices in the U.S. have ever had the Adups software cited in recent news reports installed on them, and will not,” it said. “ZTE always makes security and privacy a top priority for our customers. We will continue to ensure customer privacy and information remain protected.”

Update: Added newest information regarding Blu’s Amazon Prime Exclusive phones, in addition to an updated list of affected manufacturers and recommendations on how to spot the spyware and avoid buying a device that may contain it.

Source: Digital Trends.


Google disables Assistant Mi Home integration after bizarre Xiaomi camera bug

Ricky 03 January 2020

Following a Reddit thread about an issue with Google Assistant and Xiaomi-branded home security cameras, Google has indefinitely disabled integration with Mi Home, Xiaomi’s smart home platform. Google is investigating a bug that caused a user with a Xiaomi Mijia security camera to inadvertently view camera feeds from other homes.

Redditor Dio-V posted images in a post that detailed the issue. As per the post, when he asked his Google Next Hub to view one of their Xiaomi camera feeds, the Nest Hub displayed distorted still images from other homes, including one of a sleeping baby. The feeds looked like they came straight from a horror movie.

A Google Spokesperson said: “We’re aware of the issue and are in contact with Xiaomi to work on a fix. In the meantime, we’re disabling Xiaomi integrations on our devices.”.

We’d tell you to disconnect any Xiaomi cameras that you may have until the problem is fixed, but Google is already a step ahead. We’ll keep you updated when a fix arrives.

Source: GSMarena 

Heatwave power problems a deliberate failure of government

  

With the heatwave in Melbourne on Friday the 20^th of December 2019, where 44 °C (111 °F) was recorded in the 'burbs, the authorities stated that blackouts would be a common occurrence, where the blame is put on the weather or maybe an act of god.

The reality is that the weather is no longer an ‘act’ of god but rather an ‘Act’ of parliament. 

To be more specific the Parliament of Victoria under the Rain-making Control Act 1967, see: http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/Domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/LTObject_Store/LTObjSt3.nsf/b1612aeaf0625227ca257619000d0882/6d1f7c915fc138ecca257761002b4914/$FILE/67-7637a011.pdf

The mainstream media reported that two electricity generators were not functional, in order to activate when peak power is required by ‘consumers’.

So, we have an approx influx of 2,500 people or rather ‘consumers’ from overseas per week coming into Melbourne.

These consumers need to be housed in the process consuming infrastructure resources that the government has deliberately not expanded on, in this case electricity.

You can bet your tax payer funded politician’s pay rise that the humans in government have not missed out on providing themselves with sufficient resources (e.g. tax payer funded holiday 'allowance') to carry on with their business activities.

Australia, the most corrupt colony on the planet?

Remembering, that in order to put the bushfires out, all the (Victorian) government as to do is to ‘make it rain’ as per the above mentioned Act, but that’s another post altogether.

Did you hear about this in the news?

We should be aware that the ‘news’ or rather public news media does not tell you ‘everything’, especially when it comes to certain matters or depending on who’s pulling the strings.

Very briefly,

A nondescript plane landed at Essendon Airport.

To the naked eye or unsuspecting plane spotter, that would not be a big deal.

The plane was tasked with transporting cargo by one of Australia’s richest families, which again does not seem out of the ordinary.

The ‘problem’ in this case was that the plane’s pilot was met by police upon landing.

The plane had on board a significant amount of (illegal) narcotics in tandem with (once again ‘illegal’) a cache of firearms.

Since the ‘family’ did not want an unnecessary spotlight drawn to their name, the ‘incident’ was kept under wraps.

So this ‘significant’ event, an event that is in the ‘interest of the public’ has been kept from the public, by none other than a (corrupt) police force.

Don’t forget that the commissioner of (NSW) police Mick Fuller  stated that people should ‘fear’ police, a typical (penal) colony / police state attitude, remembering that Australia is still a colony.

Source: supplied

Traffic congestion:- government caused people punished

In the [penal] colony of the British empire called Australia, the colonialists sure have a ‘funny’ way of punishing their tax slaves.

The government of the year implemented a mass invasion of (banker’s) slaves, under whatever pretext, be it ‘human rights’ or refugees, where in ol’ Melbourne ‘town’ the uptake of the overseas slaves is at approx 2,500 ‘consumers’ per week.

This number is far more than the infrastructure can handle, where public transport and automobile traffic congestion on the roads are just some of the problems the residents of Melbourne must face, problems that were created by those in government.

The people in government do NOT face the same problems as the serfs do, even though of example Bill Shorten may have lived in the ‘burbs but his commute to his office was just a short distance where he and his wife, the daughter of Quentin Bryce lived.

As a result of ‘traffic congestion’ the people in government’s solution is to punish the slaves, by taking more cash away from their household budget, by taxing them for using ‘congested’ roads, where the ‘congestion’ was caused by those in government in the first place.

Another tax on the serfs to fund the luxurious pensions MPs receive for stuffing up the people.

It’s absolutely astonishing that there are no protests with regards to this, but then again, given the vegetative state of the herd population, it’s really no surprise.

DVA a major contributor to veteran suicide

So, this is how the administration government of a colony of the British empire rules over the people.

The people in government send their cannon fodder over the seas to kill other nation's people for their benefit.

As a result of killing other people, those who make it back alive, have enormous (mental) health problems, but they are literally discarded by the very people that sent them overseas to kill other people.

In typical colonial fashion those in government then hide/falsify the problems they caused to the returned veterans.

Briefly,

When veterans deal with the Department of Veteran Affairs, they are up against an opposing force that deals with their claims to such an extent that many commit suicide where the modus operandi is not to acknowledge any claims first and foremost, and change the ‘goal posts’ on the claimant, after completing what that 'person' was told to.

When a suicide occurs a cover-up is made by those in government, stating that the death was an ‘accident’.

Whether people ‘volunteer’ or get told to go overseas to kill other people for the benefit of those in government, at the end of the day it’s up to you to say no to enrolling to kill people for those in government, in other countries.