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Australia Moves Toward New Restrictions On Technology Export and Publication
An anonymous reader writes Australia is starting a public
consultation process for new legislation that further restricts the
publication and export of technology on national security grounds. The
public consultation starts now (a few days before Christmas) and it is due
by Jan 30th while a lot of Australians are on holidays. I don't have the
legal expertise to dissect the proposed legislation, but I'd like some
more public scrutiny on it. I find particularly disturbing the phrase "The
Bill includes defences that reverse the onus of proof which limit the
right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty" contained in this
document, also available on the consultation web site.
Nice to see Australian politicians are getting back to their ancestral criminal roots.
So if some nice upstanding code monkey makes a few changes to, say, OpenSSL, the minute he uploads it to the repository, the Australian police are going to come down on him like a ton of bricks?
Meanwhile, some batshit crazy Iranian refugee can buy a gun...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Are you kidding... we lost the right to be presumed innocent years ago.
The police can set up a road-block and demand that drivers provide a breath test and proof of their license at any time. Isn't that a presumption of guilt rather than innocence?
The taxman can deliver an assessment that says you owe $xxxxx in taxes and you are presumed to be guilty unless you can prove you don't owe that much in tax. Where's the presumption of innocence there?
Citizens of the USA have given away most of their constitutional rights after being duped by a government that says that those rights must be surrendered to avoid massive terror attacks and Australia (plus NZ) have becom little more than lap-dogs to the US government.
Here in NZ, Kim Dotcom (love him or hate him) has had his assets seized and was incarcerated at the US government's whim -- even though he has not been convicted of any of the charges laid against him. Where's his right to be presumed innocent?
I'm afraid that the world in 2014 is a very sad place where most Western governments consider all their citizens to be enemies of the state unless they can prove otherwise.
The terrorists have won this war completely -- they have done what the Germans could not do in WW1 and WW2 -- they have taken our freedoms from us and we have surrendered them without a fight.
As Midnight Oil so wisely said: It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees -- what a shame our politicians don't get it.
CSIRO has been responsible for a number of important technological advancements. Heard of Wi-Fi? They invented that. But don't worry, the Australian government is hard at work dismantling this subversive organization.
They didn't write the standard. They invented much of the error correction necessary for wifi to work.
In other news, New Zeland got all excited and started making plans for a new software development centre. Because who wants to develop software that may not be able to be sold to a world market? This is one reason so many "American" companies are headquartered in Ireland.
Firstly, this isn't a general law, it's an amendment to the law governing foreign sales of military technology. It only applies if a specific technology is classified as solely defense or strategic. Yes that classification can be manipulated, but a court would have to be convinced that the classification is valid.
Secondly, the bill isn't doing away with the presumption of innocence globally. It is saying that if a person selling the regulated technology relies on the exceptions and regulations to decide whether it is safe to supply technology, that they have documented that reliance properly. Basically they want people to do their homework before handing classified military information over to a foreign actor. Seems fair enough.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
Hate to break it to you, but the US is way ahead of Australia in that regard.
If you ever get pulled over by a cop while carrying a large amount of cash on you, you'll find out the hard way.
Seriously! Let the blood back into the brain your tin foil hat it killing you!
This is EXISTING legislation. AND the proposed changes tighten the definitions in most cases. Firstly they are removing the prohibition on talking to someone about it, now you actually have to supply the documentation or the item. Another is to allow a project to have the ability to release information not just an individual.
The publishing rule is being narrowed to be publishing only in direct contravention of a restriction or if something is specifically listed.
They have narrowed the brokering offence to only part 1 of the DSGL which are military use only items and changing brokering dual use items an offence only if you do it negligently or recklessly and the items will be used for WMD.
So rather than doing a Chicken Little, how about you stop making yourself look like an idiot and read.
The Australian radio-astronomer John O'Sullivan developed a key patent used in Wi-Fi as a by-product in a CSIRO research project, "a failed experiment to detect exploding mini black holes the size of an atomic particle".
So a researcher at CSIRO developed some patentable technology during a research project, patented it, and then enforced their own patent?
That's how patents are meant to work.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
They did not, because the people who invented the relevant bits of Wi-Fi and brought them to the IEEE invented them before CSIRO did.
From my understanding CSIRO solved the key problems for microwave echo cancellation and invented the IC's that encapsulated the fast fourier transforms. Here is an article with a video if it is too long to read.
Certainly Australia probably doesn't have the innovative capacity of larger countries like the US/UK and Canada but for a country of 25 million but we do make significant contributions for a country whose conservative party is constantly ripping apart research and development funding and forcing us to be more dependent on other countries. 5 Billion dollars a year was taken from the IT sector alone way back in the nineties so any criticism of Australia's capacity to innovate is not indicative of our past performance, current capacity or future ability but the performance of our politicians whose vision for Australia is to be the worlds coal mine.
It wouldn't be the first time we've been made to wait for everyone at the finish line and wave them all past. In the meantime those of us who care will be forced to read this bill to understand what restrictions will be place on the capacity to innovate in the business sector now.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Then you would (or should) know that the CSIRO patent is specifically about dealing with interference caused by short-delay local multipath reflections in OFDM systems, not OFDM itself.
And you would know (or should be able to find out) when it was initially accepted into the IEEE patent pool for 802.11. Hint: it was right near the beginning, predating the parts of the standard that use the techniques by many years...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
>From my understanding CSIRO solved the key problems for microwave echo cancellation and invented the IC's that encapsulated the fast fourier transforms. Here is an article with a video if it is too long to read.
You mean OFDM? Try googling "who invented OFDM". It dates back to the 60s. I am one of the authors of 802.11 and 802.16 that both use OFDM. So are many other Slashdot readers.
I am honored to make your acquaintance.
As stated though, it seems the CSIRO invented the chips that made wi-fi commercially viable and invented the methods that provided the refinements required adequate throughput of data via wi-fi. I think the courts in the US decided in the CSIRO's favor and the article suggests that it was the CSIRO's management that decided to pursue the credit and much needed financial royalties associated with the invention.
Are you saying they are lying? Mindful of your contribution, which I accept, is there a reason to minimise Australia's achievements?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The police can set up a road-block and demand that drivers provide a breath test and proof of their license at any time
Driving is a privilege, not a right. Abuse this privilege and it will be taken away from you.
If you dont like RBT's you have the choice not to drive. A lot of Australians like RBT's because it cuts down on drunk drivers. Whilst we're on that subject, you have no right to drink and drive.
That assessment is court admissible evidence that you do owe $xxxx in taxes. You have been demonstrated to be in arrears. The tax tables are published before the FY starts and the government it not permitted to change the tax tables once the FY begins. So you have no excuse for not knowing how much you owe. Of course as part of our legal system you get the opportunity to demonstrate those figures are wrong. This means you get the presumption of innocence as you get to challenge the assessment. The fact is most people choose not to because the assessment is accurate. You have no idea what presumption of innocence means.
As Midnight Oil so wisely said
What does Peter Garrett do? You strike me as one of those Freemen On The Land nutters. For the Americans playing along at home FOTL's are the equivalent of Tea Partiers, Libertarians and Rednecks all rolled into one completely retarded package.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Apparently only the Ars hackjob version, or similar stories.
The Wikipedia section is a reasonable rundown, athough it's not entirely accurate - it skips over some of the early history (like the initial 1992/1993 Australian patent/update), mentions nothing about the patent's acceptance into the 802.11 patent pool, skips quite a bit between the development of 802.11a and the patent lawsuit, and slightly misrepresents the state of Radiata at the time of the lawsuits...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?