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Australian Bureau of Statistics Doesn't Like Direct Downloads of Census Data
Bismillah writes "The ABS has released the census data for the country under a Creative Commons license, but instead of making it easy to get, they've put in Javascript to obfuscate file paths and more. All commented in the source code of course."
At first glance, it's an attempt to get people to pay $250 for a DVD with the data instead.
Sounds like an excellent use for Bit Torrent? I assume someone will download the whole dataset and make a torrent out of it before long....
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Link to the torrent of the census data from the article:
http://blog.angrygoats.net/2013/04/12/2011-australian-census-release-3/
Since the data is available for free (obfuscated or not) and was released under a CC license, technically this should all be considered legal, right? Not that it should be necessary of course.
Apparently being anti-Steam is grounds for insults, even if there's basis. I shall learn to keep my mouth shut.
... descended from criminals and retarded monkeys.
No, we're not all descended from the English let alone Americans.
I saw the title text and thought the census data was being provided through bittorrent. A few games including the popular World of Warcraft distribute their updates through the protocol, seeing it adopted in other areas to reduce the bandwidth costs seems like a good idea.
I think that is really funny! They declare the data free and then make an inept attempt to force people to pay for it. It's almost as bad as copyrighting public laws.
Thanks a lot Slashdot. Now I have a sudden urge to know precisely how many married couples with the husbands between the ages of 30 and 32 inclusive have children in Queensland, and what the genders of and ages of the children are.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Remember that in many countries works of the national government are not automatically in the public domain like they are in the US. In Commonwealth realms this is called Crown Copyright.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright/
Anyway, they're pulling the same thing here. They want someone to gather up their data and present it in a nice package for free. The best way to do that is to drop an ineptly-presented steaming pile of crap on the internets. There'll probably be 15 open source projects to slice and dice it on github by the weekend, and it didn't cost the Australian government a dime! It's brilliant!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Magnet link for the lazy:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:EE2DEAA27287952089AE257EC8B009E382598239&dn=2011%20Datapacks%20BCP_IP_TSP_PEP_ECP_WPP_Release%203.tar.xz&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.publicbt.com%3a80%2fannounce&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3a80%2fannounce
or
http://mgnet.me/DTyE
or torrent: http://grond.angrygoats.net/torrent/2011%20Datapacks%20BCP_IP_TSP_PEP_ECP_WPP_Release%203.tar.xz.torrent
No, Br'er Rabbit, don't tell the world we are hiding our data, they might get copies and make sure the whole world has access to it, no, don't do that Br'er Rabbit.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
No, no, you're right, the US government is always transparent and forthcoming with information
(yes it was sarcasm)
This is the idiot tax. By taking wealth from people unable to think, we restrict their ability to feed children and slow down the epidemic. Brilliant!
Tomorrow is another day...
to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence. The real goal could of had nothing to do with "hiding" the data.
Crikey, they're a bunch of naughty little critters for doing that!
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
"The ABS is constantly looking at ways it can simplify the website and enhance the user experience," iTnews was told via email.
Stop hosting it on Lotus Domino servers and you won't have to worry about how many people download the damned data.
What is the point of putting a creative commons license on data that is not copyrightable. Anyone can take the data and do anything they want with it and there is nothing anyone can do about it. If it were otherwise, no one would be able to broadcast the temperature without permission from the weather office. How well would that system work?
Actually, he was facing over 50 years in prison.
From TFA:
"The ABS is constantly looking at ways it can simplify the website and enhance the user experience," iTnews was told via email.
Stop hosting it on Lotus Domino servers and you won't have to worry about how many people download the damned data.
U crazy? After millions paid for the Lotus servers and zillions in staff training (or... was it train stuffing? in the context, the results would be the same), you want the IT dept head to... well, lose her/his head?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
From the code:
// Also, generate a random number, which we append to the URL, to make it appear as if a complex
//key is required. This is a pathetic attempt to discourage someone from downloading the ZIPs
//directly (ie. without having to login), if they deduce the URL pattern.
Translation:
Coder: "Here's the census web application."
PHB: "Great. But wait..I can just type in these other names and download them really easily! People will hack us and we'll be out possibly a COUPLE THOUSAND DOLLARS! "
Coder: "It is Creative Commons data, so of course we added no protection. Changing that now will be a massive rewrite and take months."
PHB: "So let's add some random numbers to the end so it looks really complex and people can't guess how to get in."
Coder: "But they still will eventually see the links because they do actually have to download it, so this is not really doing anything."
PHB: "Psh, no one is smart enough to figure that out. I read about this GUID things and they're really hard to guess. It will work. This is your job today."
Coder "..Ok, fine. I'll do it exactly the way you asked."
Speak before you think
Why on earth did they waste time and money obfusticating something that is licensed on the creative commons. All someone has to do is either buy the DVD or reverse engineer the site once and they can put it up on their own website
I think you've answered your own question.
In Commonwealth realms this is called Crown Copyright.
Did someone say apply the CC licence and not specify which?
I gather this is data being published by a government agency. As all agencies are funded by taxpayers, all records -- with exceptions for security and privacy -- should already be open to the public. Creative Commons seems inappropriate here; the correct notice should be "Public Domain", or is Aussie law different in this respect from US law?
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
And we all know all forms of central planning always fail at everything. That's why centrally planned, hierarchical organisations like religions, corporations and military forces have never been successful at anything.
Was certain I had read those comments before. Yep
Everybody uses broad generalizations.
The Australian government is excellent at selling to the public products that the public have paid to produce. In the US (at least in theory) products of the US government are in the public domain and not eligible for copyright. I know, there are tons of things the US government produces that are exempt from this. I know this is a simplistic view, but Australia should not be selling things to people that they have already bought with their tax dollars.
The real goal could of had nothing to do with "hiding" the data.
If you could read, you might have seen that phrase spelled "could've", which is a contraction of the phrase "could have". Instead, you heard it spoken out loud and parsed it incorrectly as "could of". What the !@#$ does "could of" even mean?!?
You're welcome.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
How is it that census data is creative enough to merit a copyright?
I explicitly release the above into the public domain.
same way a phone book is, I guess.
And if I remember rightly, that change didn't go down too well in Australia.
Cogito, ergo sig.