I'm all in favour of freedom of speech, but I don't think it really exists any more. It was once a founding principle of the USA, but it has been progressively eroded by libel and slander lawsuits. Arguably, we are held accountable for the things we say when we are not anonymous - and this has created a polarising situation. We cannot have freedom of speech unless we are anonymous, but we hideously abuse that freedom of speech when we are. A quick trip to 4Chan will show just how badly that freedom is abused.
Abolishing anonymity is a bad solution, but it is a particularly workable one. It will gag freedom of speech so badly that the American Government will probably be forced to rethink some laws if they intend to keep it as a constitutional right. The fanatics will say 'no compromise', but I suspect that a compromised form of freedom of speech combined with a measurable accountability (based in identity) will be the eventual outcome.
I'm inclined to agree with you. And I like the non-emotive tone that you're using. One of the best reads I've seen on the Internet in a long time is the Wikipedia style-guide. If more people tried to comply with their guidelines, we would have a lot more open-and-frank discourses, and a lot less people being offended (or offending).
Having spent a fair amount of time working on a help-desk, I'm all too familiar with the irate customer who has steam coming out their ears by the time they call me. Its easy to become inflamed if they're using aggressive rhetoric instead of assertive dialogue. I have to admit that I bite every once in a while, but I usually don't. Just not sure how to express the conceptual difference between censoring an uncomfortable truth (which would be bad), and self-censoring rage/venting behaviour (which I think is OK).
Whilst deindividuation is a recognised problem, I also believe the absence of non-verbal cues is a huge issue as well.
When we queue for a teller at the bank, there is a natural interaction between us that is completely non-verbal. We can see the woman who is stressed by an obnoxious child. We can see the fragile old man who needs extra time. On the Internet (and in traffic), these signals are not present. We often gauge each other's behaviour and responses in the context of our own lives and emotional state.
And this all occurs in the overarching context of our progressively deteriorating grasp on the English language. Smileys, and more recently Lol-speak, are an attempt to flesh out our inability to express our emotions in the written word. Lol-speak, or meme-speak is starting to help, but its had the whole of about 10 years to evolve - compared to a few hundred thousand years of the evolution of our non-verbal communication.
Is it any wonder that tolerance is lacking?
Thankfully, we're not completely stupid, and we're starting to adapt to the problem. Hence my personal favourite phrase on the Internet: Don't feed the trolls.
Christian, eh? Well, it just so happens that I'm the son of a minister, so let's talk about that for a minute.
So, are you an old testament kind of a guy or a new testament kind of a guy? Old testament is all about rules and laws, and you don't seem to have any truck with that kind of thing. New testament is more about using your moral compass as a guide, and that seems to fit more with your comments.
OK. So Jesus is your guide and saviour. Good stuff. The question becomes: Are you following his teachings? Do you embrace love, kindness and compassion in everything you do? If someone strikes you, do you turn the other cheek? Or do you turn your back upon them and call them your enemy?
Would you make them your neighbour, or are you the very zealot sitting at the table that Jesus overturned in the marketplace? We know that he loves you regardless, but would he be pleased with your behaviour?
Ask your church elders for their guidance. Speak to the leaders of your prayer group and seek their counsel. Tell them about this crazy old bastard on/. who spouted off some old testament crap about 'thou shalt not steal'. Tell them how wrong it is. Tell them how it made you feel. See what they say. It will help.
I'm not sure if you're just trolling, or if you really believe in your faith. But it makes me feel better to be true to my own beliefs. I've sent you a friend request. You may discard it if you wish.
Yes, we've heard here on/. about how enlightened you Australians are when it comes to matters of technology and privacy. The rest of your diatribe is basically anti-pirate propaganda.
Perhaps you could try playing the ball instead of the man?
Yes, and human history is full of vigilantes. History often shows.... bla bla bla
In Australia, it is classified as a crime. Basically the same as petty theft.
And the analogy is sound. Paying money to company A does not justify stealing from company B. It doesn't matter whether its a movie or a car. A lot of media pirates use all manner of weird justifications for their actions.
They say they were 'trying before buying' - which is just stealing and paying later.
They say the media companies are criminal - which is just stealing from other criminals.
They say the laws are wrong - which is just stealing.
The instant you watch the first scene of a pirated movie, you have stolen it. Paying later might get you off the hook from a civil action, but it doesn't change the criminality of the original act.
There seems to be a mentality that these vigilante actions are somehow acceptable because of the moral rightness of them. They're not. Life is not a Die Hard movie.
Spending lots of money doesn't justify a criminal act.
Its like saying 'its OK for me to steal a car because I spend lots of money on petrol'.
I appreciate that the analogy is not perfect as the petrol companies don't sell cars, but there are a lot of different companies in the media industry too.
Because historically, the only state that has ever had the balls to diverge from the others has been South Australia, and they're currently the nannies that blocked this thing in the first place.
Having been the person to start the ball rolling with petitions to state governments (which flowed on to a great national petition sponsored largely by EB Games), I can summarise the response from the Qld State Parliament: "We'll watch what happens nationally and then consider it."
You can look up my ePetition (1346-09) if you'd like a citation.
This is a particularly useless response given that the State Legislation in Qld already grants it the right to ignore the national classification scheme and apply its own classification to any media refused classification nationally.
The State Government is simply choosing not to act on the wishes of the public because it can choose to do so without consequence.
Having been one of the first people to instigate an ePetition before the Qld Parliament, and having been summarily told that the Attorney General "doesn't really give a rats", I have become more than a little jaded about our government's commitment to reform.
90's style Change Management is about making the punters believe that they contributed to, and actively selected, the course that you had already plotted for them.
Nothing much has changed in the last 15 years.
Still, I put in my public submission, and quoted the 6000 votes I gathered on my ePetition. Here's hoping the folks from EB Games (who gathered around 100,000 votes in their petition across the whole of Oz) throw their hat into the ring and contribute to a sane outcome also.
Well, I do own an IT company, and I'm not hiring him.
It is very normal for humans to have thoughts about revenge after a kick in the guts. Indeed, if we didn't think about revenge, there would be something wrong with us.
However, converting those thoughts into actions is an indicator of poor impulse control, and extremely poor judgement.
/. is a funny place as we can all think-out-loud about these things. Some people even make the mistake of believing that a few of the folks here would do these kinds of things.
I prefer to think that the crazies don't inhabit this realm. That's why I keep coming back.
And then, we threw out the half-right, centre left for a double left, half right, left-right-out halfwit. With a twist of lemon.
I saw a really nice comment here on/. that summarises the American view of legality and morality in a similar thread a few months ago.
America is fundamentally interested in protecting America's interests. The words 'legality' and 'morality' are irrelevant. If America wants your oil, they shall take it. If your country is potentially destabilising an American oil source in the middle east, they will crush your government. And substitute their own. These choices are not made in consideration of human rights violations, or in the interests of the victimised populations. They are made based on American interests.
It is American civilisation, not Islam who shall survive into the next century.
-- "The history books do not tell us who was right. They only tell us who won"
Its not about securing data. Its not even about Google mis-using demographics.
Its about privacy and business value.
Most businesses are valued based on their assets, stock on hand and good will. Good will is a measure of the number of customers who continue to use the business regularly.
Good will is typically measured by looking at the CRMs and counting the number of client files that are active. Take that away, and you can no longer measure good will.
So, why does Cloud computing threaten good will? I'm glad you asked. Many consumers continue to conduct business with a particular company because 'they have my records'. Its not some kind of corporate blackmail. Its easy for the customer to continue to do business with the people that know them. This customer knowledge is held in corporate CRMs.
As soon as it becomes widely known that all CRM data is in the Cloud, there will be a gradual transition (thanks to FOI laws) of the ownership of the data moving back to the individuals instead of residing with the companies. Microsoft's HealthVault is case in point. When my medical records are owned by ME instead of owned by my doctor, I can choose to get healthcare anywhere.
There are great arguments in favour of the concept. Client service will improve out of sight when it is the yardstick for comparing companies (instead of possession of CRM data). However, show me one businessman who is prepared to give his goodwill into Google's custody, and I'll show you a big risk-taker.
I've worked at a bank where $30,000 was sent overseas by accident in a testlab incident. A testlab!
Banks are monumentally incompetent at securing their environments, so each individual needs to become accountable for the security of anything that takes place outside the bricks and mortar of their bank. Mmy strategy is to distribute my funds across a few different banks.
No password sharing minimises the risks, and distribution minimises the impact.
Well, of course they have a cause. However, it is a complex emotional situation that they are expressing.
If we take the GeoHot story as an example (a subset, if you will), it is clear that they take issue with the notion that someone might purchase a thing, and then not own it. A large chunk of our economic rationalism is based on the concept that when you buy a thing, you own it. If the person who sold it to you then continue to claim any 'rights' to the object, it is an offence to capitalism.
I'm not claiming that LulzSec are a bunch of right-wing fanatics. On the contrary, they have intrinsically recognised that capitalism is failing. Quite probably at a subsconscious level. They feel that their rights are being eroded by large corporations with big legal teams.
They don't know what would be better, but they know that what we have today is wrong. They are so affronted by its wrongness that they feel the need to go to war against it.
However, they also realise that they cannot hope to stand against that oppresive empire. As individuals, they can be picked off and annihilated (eg Robert Cavanaugh). Their strength lies in their anonymity. What they probably don't realise is that they are frightened to declare their cause. If they did, the oppresive empire could (would) spin the story round to a situation that would make LulzSec look bad. That's what spin doctors do, and in these modern times, we all know too well that it is dangerous to declare any opinion or position. Just look at how vague our government members have become.
No. LulzSec have a cause, but they're not really clear on it because they're afraid to declare it. Its not so much the case that they fight for what they believe in. Its more so the case that they are fighting against what they don't believe in. And with all the angst and moral outrage that most teenagers exhibit, they will continue to tear down the wrongs of the world.
Perhaps they will convince someone smarter to create a better model. A model that will pass their moral judgment. Or perhaps the existing model will figure out a way to oppress them. Time will tell.
-- "History does not tell us who was right and who was wrong. It tells us who won."
It astounds me that the CIA/FBI are naive enough to believe that leaking this tripe is going to frighten pre-pubescent hackers into leaving Sony alone.
That's their strategy for stopping LulzSec?
Actually, it doesn't astound me. It disappoints me.
Sorry if that's bad news. A degree is the most respected qualification out there. When I was going through uni, I scoffed at the mundane nature of the material they were teaching me. Joked about how I could get better value using it as toilet paper. 10 years later, it hit me like a brick. I was building 3rd normal form databases. Referential Integrity was a term I understood. I could build components with Lazy Evaluation, and I knew why I was doing it.
Getting a degree also tells prospective employers that you're a finisher. You don't just start stuff and bail when it gets scary. You don't give up on a project because parts of it are hard or unpleasant. I know some employers who don't care what degree you've got, as long as you've got one.
If you want an employer's respect, there is no quick and easy way to win it. You have to do the really hard stuff to prove that you can do the really hard stuff.
We already have far less rights than the Australian population knows. They generally tend to believe that they have the same rights as Americans. We have no Miranda (sp?). We have no right to our homes. Australia has no concept of an illegal search or seizure. Evidence cannot be excluded for these kinds of reasons.
The weakness of our constitution is part of the problem. The 'man in the street' (or man on the couch) wouldn't have to be so active if we had a half decent constitution. This doesn't mean that we can all sit on our collective backsides and do nothing. It means that there would be more opportunity for civil libertarians to challenge stupid laws.
Let's face it. Most of us don't really know much about politics and the law. And most of us don't have the will to fight these battles. The purpose of a constitution is to protect the rights of the folks who are less capable of protecting their own.
I'm certainly not promoting the American constitution. I think we could do way better than that one. Problem is that we're not trying to... and until these little issues become big enough to seriously threaten a government, change is unlikely to happen. The last time a referendum was passed in Australia was 1977, and the content was largely inconsequential to our rights.
A poster on/. recently brought to my attention that it was narcissistic to fear the loss of liberties. It made me think about that really hard - and after all is said and done, I'm inclined to agree. Excessive police/ASIO rights are unlikely to ever cause problems for me because I'm not a criminal. I'm not even close to being a criminal. This one is not going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Let it go.
Slashdot Mirror
I've certainly trolled a few people by saying 'citation needed'. Something I'm a little embarrassed about actually.
I'm all in favour of freedom of speech, but I don't think it really exists any more. It was once a founding principle of the USA, but it has been progressively eroded by libel and slander lawsuits. Arguably, we are held accountable for the things we say when we are not anonymous - and this has created a polarising situation. We cannot have freedom of speech unless we are anonymous, but we hideously abuse that freedom of speech when we are. A quick trip to 4Chan will show just how badly that freedom is abused.
Abolishing anonymity is a bad solution, but it is a particularly workable one. It will gag freedom of speech so badly that the American Government will probably be forced to rethink some laws if they intend to keep it as a constitutional right. The fanatics will say 'no compromise', but I suspect that a compromised form of freedom of speech combined with a measurable accountability (based in identity) will be the eventual outcome.
I'm inclined to agree with you. And I like the non-emotive tone that you're using. One of the best reads I've seen on the Internet in a long time is the Wikipedia style-guide. If more people tried to comply with their guidelines, we would have a lot more open-and-frank discourses, and a lot less people being offended (or offending).
Having spent a fair amount of time working on a help-desk, I'm all too familiar with the irate customer who has steam coming out their ears by the time they call me. Its easy to become inflamed if they're using aggressive rhetoric instead of assertive dialogue. I have to admit that I bite every once in a while, but I usually don't. Just not sure how to express the conceptual difference between censoring an uncomfortable truth (which would be bad), and self-censoring rage/venting behaviour (which I think is OK).
Whilst deindividuation is a recognised problem, I also believe the absence of non-verbal cues is a huge issue as well.
When we queue for a teller at the bank, there is a natural interaction between us that is completely non-verbal. We can see the woman who is stressed by an obnoxious child. We can see the fragile old man who needs extra time. On the Internet (and in traffic), these signals are not present. We often gauge each other's behaviour and responses in the context of our own lives and emotional state.
And this all occurs in the overarching context of our progressively deteriorating grasp on the English language. Smileys, and more recently Lol-speak, are an attempt to flesh out our inability to express our emotions in the written word. Lol-speak, or meme-speak is starting to help, but its had the whole of about 10 years to evolve - compared to a few hundred thousand years of the evolution of our non-verbal communication.
Is it any wonder that tolerance is lacking?
Thankfully, we're not completely stupid, and we're starting to adapt to the problem. Hence my personal favourite phrase on the Internet: Don't feed the trolls.
Christian, eh? Well, it just so happens that I'm the son of a minister, so let's talk about that for a minute.
/. who spouted off some old testament crap about 'thou shalt not steal'. Tell them how wrong it is. Tell them how it made you feel. See what they say. It will help.
So, are you an old testament kind of a guy or a new testament kind of a guy? Old testament is all about rules and laws, and you don't seem to have any truck with that kind of thing. New testament is more about using your moral compass as a guide, and that seems to fit more with your comments.
OK. So Jesus is your guide and saviour. Good stuff. The question becomes: Are you following his teachings? Do you embrace love, kindness and compassion in everything you do? If someone strikes you, do you turn the other cheek? Or do you turn your back upon them and call them your enemy?
Would you make them your neighbour, or are you the very zealot sitting at the table that Jesus overturned in the marketplace? We know that he loves you regardless, but would he be pleased with your behaviour?
Ask your church elders for their guidance. Speak to the leaders of your prayer group and seek their counsel. Tell them about this crazy old bastard on
I'm not sure if you're just trolling, or if you really believe in your faith. But it makes me feel better to be true to my own beliefs. I've sent you a friend request. You may discard it if you wish.
Yes, we've heard here on /. about how enlightened you Australians are when it comes to matters of technology and privacy. The rest of your diatribe is basically anti-pirate propaganda.
Perhaps you could try playing the ball instead of the man?
Yes, and human history is full of vigilantes. History often shows.... bla bla bla
Sigh... citation needed. Good luck with that.
Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
In Australia, it is classified as a crime. Basically the same as petty theft.
And the analogy is sound. Paying money to company A does not justify stealing from company B. It doesn't matter whether its a movie or a car. A lot of media pirates use all manner of weird justifications for their actions.
They say they were 'trying before buying' - which is just stealing and paying later.
They say the media companies are criminal - which is just stealing from other criminals.
They say the laws are wrong - which is just stealing.
The instant you watch the first scene of a pirated movie, you have stolen it. Paying later might get you off the hook from a civil action, but it doesn't change the criminality of the original act.
There seems to be a mentality that these vigilante actions are somehow acceptable because of the moral rightness of them. They're not. Life is not a Die Hard movie.
Spending lots of money doesn't justify a criminal act.
Its like saying 'its OK for me to steal a car because I spend lots of money on petrol'.
I appreciate that the analogy is not perfect as the petrol companies don't sell cars, but there are a lot of different companies in the media industry too.
Because historically, the only state that has ever had the balls to diverge from the others has been South Australia, and they're currently the nannies that blocked this thing in the first place.
Having been the person to start the ball rolling with petitions to state governments (which flowed on to a great national petition sponsored largely by EB Games), I can summarise the response from the Qld State Parliament: "We'll watch what happens nationally and then consider it."
You can look up my ePetition (1346-09) if you'd like a citation.
This is a particularly useless response given that the State Legislation in Qld already grants it the right to ignore the national classification scheme and apply its own classification to any media refused classification nationally.
The State Government is simply choosing not to act on the wishes of the public because it can choose to do so without consequence.
Having been one of the first people to instigate an ePetition before the Qld Parliament, and having been summarily told that the Attorney General "doesn't really give a rats", I have become more than a little jaded about our government's commitment to reform.
90's style Change Management is about making the punters believe that they contributed to, and actively selected, the course that you had already plotted for them.
Nothing much has changed in the last 15 years.
Still, I put in my public submission, and quoted the 6000 votes I gathered on my ePetition. Here's hoping the folks from EB Games (who gathered around 100,000 votes in their petition across the whole of Oz) throw their hat into the ring and contribute to a sane outcome also.
Well, I do own an IT company, and I'm not hiring him.
/. is a funny place as we can all think-out-loud about these things. Some people even make the mistake of believing that a few of the folks here would do these kinds of things.
It is very normal for humans to have thoughts about revenge after a kick in the guts. Indeed, if we didn't think about revenge, there would be something wrong with us.
However, converting those thoughts into actions is an indicator of poor impulse control, and extremely poor judgement.
I prefer to think that the crazies don't inhabit this realm. That's why I keep coming back.
Or will it be a massive bronze sofa with some fat dude sitting on it sucking on a Mountain Dew? Legendary
And then, we threw out the half-right, centre left for a double left, half right, left-right-out halfwit. With a twist of lemon.
/. that summarises the American view of legality and morality in a similar thread a few months ago.
I saw a really nice comment here on
America is fundamentally interested in protecting America's interests. The words 'legality' and 'morality' are irrelevant. If America wants your oil, they shall take it. If your country is potentially destabilising an American oil source in the middle east, they will crush your government. And substitute their own. These choices are not made in consideration of human rights violations, or in the interests of the victimised populations. They are made based on American interests.
It is American civilisation, not Islam who shall survive into the next century.
-- "The history books do not tell us who was right. They only tell us who won"
Unless I'm mistaken, you can't run a browser other than Safari on an iPad. And its built into the OS.
Wasn't there some anti-trust case against Microsoft about that?
Its not about securing data. Its not even about Google mis-using demographics.
Its about privacy and business value.
Most businesses are valued based on their assets, stock on hand and good will. Good will is a measure of the number of customers who continue to use the business regularly.
Good will is typically measured by looking at the CRMs and counting the number of client files that are active. Take that away, and you can no longer measure good will.
So, why does Cloud computing threaten good will? I'm glad you asked. Many consumers continue to conduct business with a particular company because 'they have my records'. Its not some kind of corporate blackmail. Its easy for the customer to continue to do business with the people that know them. This customer knowledge is held in corporate CRMs.
As soon as it becomes widely known that all CRM data is in the Cloud, there will be a gradual transition (thanks to FOI laws) of the ownership of the data moving back to the individuals instead of residing with the companies. Microsoft's HealthVault is case in point. When my medical records are owned by ME instead of owned by my doctor, I can choose to get healthcare anywhere.
There are great arguments in favour of the concept. Client service will improve out of sight when it is the yardstick for comparing companies (instead of possession of CRM data). However, show me one businessman who is prepared to give his goodwill into Google's custody, and I'll show you a big risk-taker.
I've worked at a bank where $30,000 was sent overseas by accident in a testlab incident. A testlab!
Banks are monumentally incompetent at securing their environments, so each individual needs to become accountable for the security of anything that takes place outside the bricks and mortar of their bank. Mmy strategy is to distribute my funds across a few different banks.
No password sharing minimises the risks, and distribution minimises the impact.
Well, of course they have a cause. However, it is a complex emotional situation that they are expressing.
If we take the GeoHot story as an example (a subset, if you will), it is clear that they take issue with the notion that someone might purchase a thing, and then not own it. A large chunk of our economic rationalism is based on the concept that when you buy a thing, you own it. If the person who sold it to you then continue to claim any 'rights' to the object, it is an offence to capitalism.
I'm not claiming that LulzSec are a bunch of right-wing fanatics. On the contrary, they have intrinsically recognised that capitalism is failing. Quite probably at a subsconscious level. They feel that their rights are being eroded by large corporations with big legal teams.
They don't know what would be better, but they know that what we have today is wrong. They are so affronted by its wrongness that they feel the need to go to war against it.
However, they also realise that they cannot hope to stand against that oppresive empire. As individuals, they can be picked off and annihilated (eg Robert Cavanaugh). Their strength lies in their anonymity. What they probably don't realise is that they are frightened to declare their cause. If they did, the oppresive empire could (would) spin the story round to a situation that would make LulzSec look bad. That's what spin doctors do, and in these modern times, we all know too well that it is dangerous to declare any opinion or position. Just look at how vague our government members have become.
No. LulzSec have a cause, but they're not really clear on it because they're afraid to declare it. Its not so much the case that they fight for what they believe in. Its more so the case that they are fighting against what they don't believe in. And with all the angst and moral outrage that most teenagers exhibit, they will continue to tear down the wrongs of the world.
Perhaps they will convince someone smarter to create a better model. A model that will pass their moral judgment. Or perhaps the existing model will figure out a way to oppress them. Time will tell.
-- "History does not tell us who was right and who was wrong. It tells us who won."
It astounds me that the CIA/FBI are naive enough to believe that leaking this tripe is going to frighten pre-pubescent hackers into leaving Sony alone.
/CIA, I am disappoint
That's their strategy for stopping LulzSec?
Actually, it doesn't astound me. It disappoints me.
Sorry if that's bad news. A degree is the most respected qualification out there. When I was going through uni, I scoffed at the mundane nature of the material they were teaching me. Joked about how I could get better value using it as toilet paper. 10 years later, it hit me like a brick. I was building 3rd normal form databases. Referential Integrity was a term I understood. I could build components with Lazy Evaluation, and I knew why I was doing it.
Getting a degree also tells prospective employers that you're a finisher. You don't just start stuff and bail when it gets scary. You don't give up on a project because parts of it are hard or unpleasant. I know some employers who don't care what degree you've got, as long as you've got one.
If you want an employer's respect, there is no quick and easy way to win it. You have to do the really hard stuff to prove that you can do the really hard stuff.
Good luck.
Personally, I blame Sony. If only they had better security they wouldn't have made such a good training ground for these 30...
I wouldn't exactly call that training. From what I've been reading, a four year old with an iPad could have hacked Sony.
double facepalm.
Why do you think the Internet was built in the first place?
Cue the "Magic Carpet Ride"
Oh, its much easier than that
We already have far less rights than the Australian population knows. They generally tend to believe that they have the same rights as Americans. We have no Miranda (sp?). We have no right to our homes. Australia has no concept of an illegal search or seizure. Evidence cannot be excluded for these kinds of reasons.
/. recently brought to my attention that it was narcissistic to fear the loss of liberties. It made me think about that really hard - and after all is said and done, I'm inclined to agree. Excessive police/ASIO rights are unlikely to ever cause problems for me because I'm not a criminal. I'm not even close to being a criminal. This one is not going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Let it go.
The weakness of our constitution is part of the problem. The 'man in the street' (or man on the couch) wouldn't have to be so active if we had a half decent constitution. This doesn't mean that we can all sit on our collective backsides and do nothing. It means that there would be more opportunity for civil libertarians to challenge stupid laws.
Let's face it. Most of us don't really know much about politics and the law. And most of us don't have the will to fight these battles. The purpose of a constitution is to protect the rights of the folks who are less capable of protecting their own.
I'm certainly not promoting the American constitution. I think we could do way better than that one. Problem is that we're not trying to... and until these little issues become big enough to seriously threaten a government, change is unlikely to happen. The last time a referendum was passed in Australia was 1977, and the content was largely inconsequential to our rights.
A poster on