Australia is 'at war' with hackers

Responding to the cyber attack on Prime Minister Julia Gillard's email system, information technology dean of research Dr Jill Slay said the nation had lost one battle with the hacking of these systems but must prepare for a longer conflict with hackers.
In May last year The Advertiser revealed Dr Slay had warned the Federal Government that politicians' use of social networking was compromising the security of government computer systems.
Dr Slay said Australian governments must understand that they are vulnerable to the world's most effective hackers.
"Think of what they have done to Google, the White House and governments in South-East Asia. A determined hacker, if they are determined to get in, they will get in there," she said.
"It is a war and we will win some and not win some, and it looks like in the current case we have lost that battle.
"All politicians need to be extremely careful, especially with social networking."
Hackers trawl social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook seeking people who have revealed too much personal information, with politicians a favourite target because their systems are also linked to Departmental systems with valuable public service information.
Dr Slay said UniSA was leading a bid with Edith Cowan University and the Queensland Institute of Technology for a Commonwealth Research Centre to better coordinate research against hacking.
Of most concern to hacker-fighters such as Dr Slay and UniSA senior lecturer in information technology, Dr Raymond Choo, is the explosion of new technology and its vulnerability, which has created what Dr Choo calls "low hanging fruit" for even inexperienced criminals.
Apple's i-devices were last year the subject of hacking via a security hole in software that allowed hackers to gain access to data by putting a file with hidden code on to a website to attract visitors. At least one South Australian Cabinet minister has converted his entire paperwork associated with the cabinet process to his iPad...

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Miles Kemp @'Adelaide Now'

Maine governor removes pro-union mural

Maine GOP Gov. Paul LePage followed through with his decision to remove a mural depicting the history of the workers' movement from the state's labor department lobby, a spokeswoman said Monday. "The mural has been removed and is in storage awaiting relocation to a more appropriate venue," said LePage press secretary Adrienne Bennett in a prepared statement. "We understand that not everyone agrees with this decision, but the Maine Department of Labor has to be focused on the job at hand."
The controversy over the 36-foot-long, 11-panel mural erupted last week when a LePage administration official announced that the artwork would be removed and that conference rooms dedicated to American labor movement icons would be renamed.
Administration officials said the change was needed to reflect a new image for the department, one not tilted toward organized labor. They said visitors to the lobby had complained that the mural is anti-business.
Maine AFL-CIO president Don Berry called it "a spiteful, mean-spirited move by the governor that does nothing to create jobs or improve the Maine economy."
Last week, acting Maine Labor Commissioner Laura Boyett announced a contest to replace the names affixed to the conference rooms. The names to be replaced include Cesar Chavez and Frances Perkins.
Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association. Perkins, the first woman to hold a Cabinet-level position in the United States, served as labor secretary under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Bennett has said the Maine Arts Commission is helping find a new site for the mural.

@'CNN'

Facebook page supporting Palestinian intifada pulled down

The mathematics of being nice

♪♫ Kode9 & Spaceape - Am I?

Ripped from the Benji B BBC show (23/03/2011)

abumuqawama
Who should the USA support in tomorrow's cricket match? I say we tell Pakistan we support them while secretly aiding & training the Indians.

Neil McCormick on Faith, God and Killing Bono

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ⒼⓄ‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘ ↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿ ‿↗⁀↘ⓌⒾⓉⒽ‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗ ↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿ ⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀ⓉⒽⒺ⁀↘‿↗⁀↘ ↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿ⒻⓁⓄⓌ

Killing Bono

(Thanx Styles Bitchley!)

Baby Sea Turtles Attacked

Cool as fuck!

Paul Simonon

Sad but true department: I still have all the copies of The Face from July 1986 (when I arrived in Australia) to about 1992 in storage. I had bought every issue previous to that and left them behind in London with a good friend of mine Bill. He apparently passed them on to 'Spotty' Tom!

Out of all the khunsts in the world to inherit my collection of what was at one time simply THE best magazine ever...

U.S. Prisons Now Hold More Black Men Than Slavery Ever Did

Japan may have lost race to save nuclear reactor

Nina Hagen & Ari Up (Anton Corbijn/Malibu 1980)

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I remember this shot from 'The Face' back in the day...

Girlz With Gunz #136 (plus Trevor Brown's 'Molly')

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REpost: 'The Gashlycrumb Tinies' By Edward Gorey

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs.

B is for Basil assaulted by bears.

C is for Clara who wasted away.

D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.

You can read the whole book by Edward Gorey here.

Thanx to Trevor Brown's 'baby art blog' for bringing back some childhood memories.

Young Ari

Bob Clearmountain: Wizard of the Rock 'n' Roll Mix

One Shot Not : Susheela Raman

Raise Up
Daga Daga
Ennapane

Mary Anne Hobbs - Return to Radio

see HERE

Eddie Vedder - Longing to Belong

 
From forthcoming album "Ukulele Songs" to be released May 27th

'I cried when I saw them marching'

The Hungarian far right looks set to roll out a campaign of Roma intimidation after meeting little resistance to its vigilante "law and order" mission in Gyongyospata, a Hungarian village of 2,800 people 80km north-east of Budapest.
For A Better Future, a paramilitary organisation deriving its name from a Nazi youth movement slogan, entered the village at the start of the month. It conducted foot and car patrols, followed Roma around and stopped them from entering shops.
On March 10, the intimidation reached its peak when 1,000 black-uniformed neo-Nazis marched through the village, some reportedly armed with dogs, whips and chains.
Many Roma were afraid to leave their homes or take their children to school. The local mayor, Laszlo Tabi, who is not officially allied to a political party, allegedly offered his seal of approval, while the police sat on their hands.
"I cried when I saw them marching," says Janos Farkas, the spokesman for the village's 450-strong Roma community which centres around a dirt road in a shallow valley at the edge of the village. Many of the dilapidated homes do not have mains water and few of their occupants jobs.
"I can't see how this could happen in a democratic country? The police are now present, but why did they let it go on for three weeks?" asks Farkas.
Nothing has been done to stop the vigilantes from restarting their activities here or to prevent them springing up elsewhere.
A national 'example'
"This looks like a local conflict, but it is a national one," says Kristof Szombati of Politics Can Be Different, a liberal green party. On this, if nothing else, the far right agrees with him.
Gyongyospata provides an "example for future situations" says Gabor Vona, the leader of the extreme-right Jobbik party, which is behind the uniformed intervention, at a press conference in the village council chamber. His party hopes to use the vigilante campaign to mark the first anniversary of its entry into parliament, with 17 per cent of the vote, next month....

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Phil Cain @'Al Jazeera'

Peasant Seeds: Dignity, Culture and Life. Farmers in Resistance to Defend their Right to Peasant Seeds

Farmers throughout the world are the victims of a war for control over seeds. Our agricultural systems are threatened by industries that seek to control our seeds by all available means. The outcome of this war will determine the future of humanity, as all of us depend on seeds for our daily food.
One actor in this war is the seed industry that uses genetic engineering, hybrid technologies and agrochemicals. Its aim is the ownership of seeds as a source of increased profits. They do this by forcing farmers to consume its seeds and become dependent on them. The other actor is peasants and family farmers who preserve and reproduce seeds within living, local, peasant and indigenous seed systems, seeds that are the heritage of our peoples, cared for and reproduced by men and women peasants. They are a treasure that we farmers generously place at the service of humanity.
Industry has invented many ways of stealing our seeds in order to manipulate them, mark them with property titles, and thereby force us, the farming peoples of the world, to buy new seeds from them every year, instead of saving and selecting them from our harvest to plant the following year. The industry’s methods include genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and hybrid seeds, which cannot be reproduced by farmers, as well as industrial property over seeds, including patents and plant variety certificates, all of which are imposed through international treaties and national laws. These are but different forms of theft, as all industrial seeds are the product of thousands of years of selection and breeding by our peoples. It is thanks to us, peasants and farmers, that humanity has at hand the great diversity of crops that, together with animal breeding, feeds the world today.
In their drive to build monopolies and steal our natural wealth, corporations and the governments who serve them place at risk all of humanity’s food and agriculture. A handful of genetically uniform varieties replace thousands of local varieties, eroding the genetic diversity that sustains our food system. Faced with climate change, diversity is a strength, and uniformity a weakness. Commercial seeds drastically reduce the capacity of humanity to face and adapt to climate change. This is why we maintain that peasant agriculture and its peasant seeds contribute to the cooling of the planet.
Our communities know that hybrid and genetically modified seeds require enormous quantities of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and water, driving up production costs and damaging the environment. Such seeds are also more susceptible to droughts, plant diseases and pest attacks, and have already caused hundreds of thousands of cases of crop failures and have left devastated household economies in their wake. The industry has bred seeds that cannot be cultivated without harmful chemicals. They have also been bred to be harvested using large machinery and are kept alive artificially to withstand transport. But the industry has ignored a very important aspect of this breeding: our health. The result is industrial seeds that grow fast have lost nutritional value and are full of chemicals. They cause numerous allergies and chronic illnesses, and contaminate the soil, water and air that we breathe.
In contrast, peasant systems for rediscovering, re-valuing, conserving and exchanging seeds, together with local adaptation due to the local selection and reproduction in farmers’ fields, maintain and increase the genetic biodiversity that underlies our world food systems and gives us the required capacity and flexibility to address diverse environments, a changing climate and hunger in the world....

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 @'La Via Campesino'

Until The End Of The World

BBC footage identifies (alleged) police agent crossing line during cuts protest

Footage shot by the BBC inadvertently catches an unidentified man walking up to police constables during a fracas, showing his identification, and quickly walking off beyond police lines.

The man is unlikely to be a journalist since he’s dressed in gear that covers his face and head, while carrying nothing that looks like a notebook or a camera.
The video was shot by a BBC News helicopter during coverage of the protests away from the main TUC march on Saturday.
In January this year the Met Police admitted that it had posted covert officers at the G20 protests last year, despite initially saying it had not.
(above video edited with Political Scrapbook. Found via @aaronjohnpeters)
The full video shot by the BBC is here (the necessary segment is 5m50s in).
Sunny Hundal @'Lib Con'

New Wilco song?

Jonny Faith - Beats From Mars Mix

Download

Tracklist:
01. Mars Intro
02. Meteor Shower (Ital Tek Remix) - Jonny Faith
03. Skulltaste - Mux Mool
04. Greatest Silence - Lorn
05. 1685 Bach - Nosaj Thing
06. Kiara - Bonobo
07. Neon Beams - Take
08. You and I Both Know - Alex B
09. Stay Blazed - Darkhouse Family
10. Full Moon - Jonny Faith
11. Cant Fathom This (Om Unit RMX) - Freddy Todd
12. I Miss Your Brains - Take
13. Soul Stew - Leonard Dstroy
14. Are You The One - Bullion
15. You - Gold Panda
16. Mahjongg - Charles Trees
17. OK Luv (Eprom rmx) - Starkey
18. Battlestar Terror - Harmonic 313 Vs Demolition Man
19. Blue Sky on Mars - Jonny Faith 

(Thanx Audiozobe!)

Mark Kennedy: Confessions of an undercover cop

After seven years spent living as an environmental activist, Mark Stone was revealed to be policeman Mark Kennedy. He talks to Simon Hattenstone about life on the outside, with no job, no friends and no idea who he really is.

Read it HERE

Zoooom: The Gift Maker

Radioheads 'The Universal Sigh' Newspaper

Radiohead are releasing an exclusive newspaper entitled The Universal Sigh, worldwide today. The newspaper release coincides with the release of The King of Limbs, on CD and vinyl in stores and on iTunes today. Due to time differences New Zealand is the first place in the world to get the chance to see what all the fuss is about. GET IT HERE [PDF format] @ripitup.co.nz

UPDATE:

D/load NO longer available but you can see it HERE
along with photos from Melbourne yesterday and video of Thom himself handing the paper out at Rough Trade in London.

Reuters Reuters Top News

FLASH: Qatar recognises rebel Libyan national council as sole, legitimate representative of Libyan people - Al Jazeera

Life at a needle exchange

Politics of misogyny, or misogyny of politics … you decide

Deadmau5 @ Ultra Music Festival - Miami - USA 26-03-2011

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Winner of Beatport's artist of the year award!

Joe Bageant RIP

Poet, prophet and redneck revolutionary: Joe Bageant R.I.P. 

Fracking the Wind River Country

Jeff and Rhonda Locker’s water changed abruptly one day in the mid-1990s while Rhonda was doing the laundry. A Denver-based gas company was working over an old well in back of their house, when the wash water turned black. “It happened just like that,” Jeff Locker says. “I stopped him and asked him what he did to our water, and of course he didn’t do anything to our water… It’s been bad ever since.”

Donna Meeks’ well water was so good, she used to haul it to town for the school office coffee pot. Neither she nor her husband Louis noticed anything wrong until her co-workers stopped drinking the coffee; it was 2004, and a Canadian company, EnCana, had just drilled a new well about 500 feet from the Meeks home. Some visiting friends later said they noticed the water tasted and smelled like gas, but didn’t want to be rude by saying anything about it.

John and Cathy Fenton had no reason to suspect there was anything wrong with their water—it tasted fine. But just to be neighborly, they went along with the Lockers, the Meeks, and other Pavillion-area residents when the Environmental Protection Agency came in 2009 for an initial round of testing. That’s when they found out that their family had been drinking water laced with methane. Follow-up tests a year later found a whole soup’s worth of semi-volatile organic compounds in the family’s stock well.

There’s something karmic about the possibility that Pavillion, Wyoming, might be the first community to prove its water damaged by natural gas production. While water literally is life everywhere in the arid West, here it’s the epicenter for deep social and political divisions.

Pavillion sits exposed to the wind and weather on the rolling high plains of the Wind River Valley’s northern flank. The town boasts two bars, two restaurants, one grocery, and serves as a social center for the community of farms and ranches that populate the Midvale irrigation district. It’s the schools—practically brand new—that bring people together here, says Jeff Locker, who sits on the school board. “Even retired people come to the ball games,” he says. By ball, Locker means basketball because this is a reservation town...

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Andrea Peacock @'Counterpunch'

Henry Rollins on water for Drop in the Bucket

And Now, A Positive Henry Rollins Story

Islamist Group Is Rising Force in a New Egypt

PSA