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Australian Gov't Loses Privacy Alert Subscription Information In the Mail

Posted by timothy on from the this-is-a-data-breach dept.

First time accepted submitter darinfp writes "As an Australian, I'd like to announce a new definition of the word 'Irony.' A government contractor put a list of users and details in the mail and it was lost. The list contained users subscribed to the government's privacy breach alert system."

6 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Let's get it started by ExploHD · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let's start with the debate if this is irony or not. GO!

    1. Re:Let's get it started by quantaman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'd say it's a pretty good example of irony, from wikipedia "A situation is often said to be ironic (situational irony) if the actions taken have an effect exactly opposite from what was intended".

      People were concerned about their privacy so they subscribed to a breach notification list, instead they had their privacy potentially violated as a result of the list that was supposed to notify them.

      I suppose a better irony would be if they were subscribers to some sort of breach avoidance system but it's still a pretty ironic situation.

      --
      I stole this Sig
  2. Australia is in the antipodes by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Funny

    The antipodes is a strange region of the Earth where everything is opposite: up is down, left is right, day is night, and most alarmingly, the water flushes down the toilet in the wrong direction. For this reason, you need to be very careful when trying to understand what an Australian is saying. Don't worry about people from New Zealand, they only talk to sheep.

    So first:

    "As an Australian, I'd like to announce a new definition of the 'Irony.'"

    What this means is that we have a new definition of common sense. However, I am a little confused, because the person says "As an Australian." Australians usually indicate they are Australian by saying "I am not Australian."

    Second:

    "A government contractor put a list of users and details in the mail and it was lost. The list contained users subscribed to the government's privacy breach alert system."

    Now, here in the Northern Hemisphere, this doesn't make any sense. But again, being as this happened in the antipodes, this is just common practical policy.

    So this is a bit of a nonstory here. Which I am saying in the Northern Hemisphere sense, and not in the antipodean sense, where calling something a nonstory would indicate that this is really a notable story.

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  3. Actually the irony is ... by Wild+Wizard · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually the irony is that the contractor is in fact AusCERT who claim to be :-

    AusCERT operates within a worldwide network of information security experts to provide computer incident prevention, response and mitigation strategies for members and assistance to affected parties in Australia.

  4. In the mail? by Cmdrm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why were they taking information, which they have electronically, and putting it on a physical medium where it loses its usability, presumably so someone could use it. And they used regular mail? Seriously? Is this April fools or something, this is just too much fail to be real.

  5. legally protect, unlike digital networks by jjbarrows · · Score: 3, Insightful

    atleast the packet has legal protection
    in australia, the government owned physical packet switching network known as 'australia post' has huge legal protection over every single packet switchted through the network, unlike digital networks. even retaining the header (sender/reciever) data is illegal, and any deep packet inspection will be met with the full force of the federal police. so from a legal perspective the data is a lot safer in post than in your email inbox