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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 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?
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.
Actually, he was facing over 50 years in prison.
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
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?
You can't copyright facts, but there are copyright-style laws covering a collection of facts organised into a database. That said, creative commons probably isn't the right licence for the same reason it wasn't the right licence for open street map (who have now migrated to a different permissive licence designed for databases of facts).
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I think you've answered your own question.
It's because bureaucrats everywhere have a visceral belief that THEY own the data and it should never be released to the public without the maximum of foot-dragging, time-wasting and hoop-jumping.
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.