NBN Oversight

I'm all for faster internet access, but I have to say, I'm not convinced that the National Broadband Network is the best solution out there. $40B+ for faster internet is about $2000 per human in Australia, which could be spent in so many other ways, such as:

1. Providing solar power for every household in Australia;
2. Building affordable, luxury apartments to sell at cost to about half a million people,* solving our housing shortage and allowing more immigration;
3. Giving it to the states to improve hospitals, public transport, education etc.

Even if we want to spend billions on faster internet, it feels like there are better options, such as:

1. Relying on existing market development (after all, Optus has been upgrading their cable network to support up to 100mbit per second);
2. Wireless for the last (most expensive) mile;
3. Using a fraction of the money as incentives for companies to invest further money building out their own networks.

Of course, I'm concerned that by building one government controlled network, there will be little impediment to large-scale monitoring and tracking, and it will make it easier for the government to implement censorship systems.

But this rant isn't about those aspects of the NBN, so that said, I'm happy to assume that the NBN is a good enough plan with which to improve our nation's infrastructure, competition issues aside, because sometimes any plan is better than no plan.

What concerns me, is that I was just listening to parliament on the radio, and they were debating a motion to disallow some delegated legislation. The legislation in question is currently in place to stop the parliamentary Public Works Committee from being able to oversee the project, and maintain transparency throughout the process. The motion failed, so the biggest, most expensive project in the history of Australia will have no parliamentary oversight to ensure that the project is running according to plan, or according to budget. As it is, from the 40% of the NBN plan that has been released, it is apparently going to optimistically lose 3%,^ due to the cost of capital being higher than the gross profit, which doesn't sound like the best of projections, considering the size of the project.

Despite this, Labor was talking about having awesome transparency. This is what annoys me the most. There is so much about this project that is hidden, so by calling this a transparently-managed project is complete doublespeak. And most people just swallow it.

/rant


* 500k people = 200k apartments = 400 high-rises = $100M per building or $200k per apartment.
^ Look up the parliamentary proceedings from today to find references to any figures I am quoting.

Do Not Knock List

After yet another religious type coming to the door today trying to sell us their non-evidence-based beliefs, and some semi-frequent hassling by utility companies, I started thinking: If we can have a Do Not Call list, then why not a Do Not Knock list?

If people could put their addresses on a list to indicate a lack of interest for certain types of door-knockers, then the householders could avoid being annoyed and the door-knockers could avoid wasting their own time and being abused for disturbing people.

I'm not so concerned about restricting the freedom of people who really want to communicate with others by door-knocking for non-sales purposes, as a legislated Do Not Knock list would have the same kind of exceptions for non-commercial communication as the Do Not Call list, but all this could lead to helping marketers to identify a household's demographic, which would be undesirable.

So, as an intermediate step, I've knocked up the following:

I tried to put one together that would refer to utilities, but I'm not very good with graphic design, and I was having trouble showing power plugs, gas flames, mobile phones and similar. If you like the idea and put together some better imagery, write a comment to let me know.

In the mean time, print out the image and stick it to the outside of your front door if you'd like to avoid having people annoy you with religious crap while you're sleeping, eating or otherwise uninterested. If they still annoy you, I'd guess you have licence to go nuts at them.

Edit: I decided to do a search and noticed that there is already a Do Not Knock campaign. Support it if you are interested.

Another edit: Completely unrelated to this post, but I just want to ensure that Pratik the Ninja's site gets indexed in Google.

Ways to Prove Homoeopathy doesn't Work

These experiments are not intended to be fully double-blind compliant or anything, but they are more scientific than homoeopathy, as low a bar as that may be.

Method #1:

1. Make a solution containing 9 parts water and one part bowling ball.
2. Stir.
3. Extract a drop of solution.
4. To the drop, add 10 litres of water.
5. Repeat 3-4 several times to ensure that no bowling ball remains in the solution
6. Drink the solution: You will notice that nothing happens.

Now, post your own ways of disproving homoeopathy in the comments.

Palantir Technologies

I once went for an interview with Palantir Technologies.

It has great technology for visualisation of data. It can be used to allow operators to see connections in unstructured data where they might otherwise remain hidden.

I saw a demo on the website that showed the system being used for anti-terrorism purposes, and while I thought it looked very cool, it raised the question, which I asked during the interview: From where does the data come?

When people use this software, are they getting court orders for bank transactions, phone calls, emails etc.? The answer I received was about what I would expect: Palantir provides the software and it is up to the users to use it legally. That's totally fine with me. It's the same argument that can be used for guns, drugs (including alcohol and cigarettes), BitTorrent and cars.

I thought that there was nothing about the fact that Palantir makes software that can be used in corrupt, illegal ways to imply that the company itself, or its employees, were unethical.

So, it turns out that in this case, I seem to have been wrong.

Through documents that were obtained when Anonymous hacked the security firm HBGary Federal, it has been shown that Palantir was directly involved in plans to attack WikiLeaks in order to protect Bank of America, about whom WikiLeaks is believed to possess a trove of documents.

Since this has all become public, Palantir has apologised profusely for its part in the scheme. Is that enough though? Who wouldn't apologise when caught red-handed trying to illegally attack another organisation? Surely the test for ethical behaviour is conducted when you don't think anyone else is watching. That's one of the main arguments for promoting the right to privacy: To enable people to choose to be good, rather than just forcing them to be, with no conscious thought.

In this case, Palantir's private actions came out, and it has failed the test. As it stands, no mere apology can compensate for its complicity.

If it truly wants to redeem itself, Palantir should put its money where its mouth is: Donate a large amount of money to organisations like EFF or WikiLeaks.

So, to Palantir CEO Alex Carp, put your money where your mouth is. Don't just talk up freedom of speech. Actively support it.

Freedom of speech for some, sometimes

I'm sick at the moment, so this might come across as more of a rant than a well thought out argument.

It seems to me, after reading a lot of recent anti-WikiLeaks news that there is a problem with free societies: They are run by regular people who are generally good at the art of politics and/or administration. There is no barrier in a free society designed to stop people who do not believe in the ideals of that society from rising to the top. In fact, they are often advantaged by not having to care about the society's rules.

Joe Lieberman and Sarah Palin, and Julia Gillard, among others, have seized on #cablegate as an opportunity to talk down the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In the case of Gillard, while I find it appalling that someone with so little respect for freedom of speech represents Australia, it is somewhat understandable, as Australia has never had particularly strong protections of our freedom of speech. The high court in fact will only recognise a limited right to freedom of political speech.

But the United States is different. The 1st amendment to their constitution reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 That's pretty clear to me.

Palin, however, thinks that Assange should be taken down like a terrorist, claiming that he can't be a member of the press and therefore have any freedom. She ignores his personal right to freedom of speech, and the fact that journalists are not defined as people who publish inoffensive puff pieces about what's growing in your fridge. Some Americans have called for him to be tried for treason, failing to notice that treason is a crime committed by a citizen against their own country, and Assange is not American.

Unfortunately, people like Palin and Lieberman just consider government to be a vehicle through which their careers and power can grow. If the U.S. just happened to be a fascist society or a socialist society, they would be exactly the same. They are pushing agendas of convenience; Whatever actions match their whimsical thoughts on a topic should be possible. They don't feel restrained by the fact that their country was founded with explicit protections against what they are trying to do.

I would just like to put out there one more fact that is being glossed over: Despite teams of lawyers working on finding something to charge Assange with, the only reason he is possibly going to be extradited to Sweden is because of what appears to be a smear campaign in the form of a molestation investigation. There is nothing else with which he has been charged or can be said to be suspected of committing. Assange may have committed an act that looks dodgy to some, but without being able to point at a law that has been broken, any attacks against him are unfounded.

I understand that there are others behind WikiLeaks, as there are unsung heroes behind any cause. Assange, however, is the face of WikiLeaks. I consider him to be my hero. Not specifically for releasing the documents of #cablegate etc., which are generally not that interesting, but for highlighting to the world what kind of reactions to expect when freedom of speech is really put to the test. It distinguishes, like nothing else I have seen, the people who actually believe in civil liberties from those who merely don't oppose them until they become inconvenient.

An argument from people who don't understand civil liberties that I really can't stand is "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you shouldn't have anything to hide." It is wrong on so many levels. I won't try to be exhaustive, but:

1. it ignores the imbalance of power between those who are allowed to see what is being hidden and those whose privacy is being invaded,
2. it assumes that nobody in power is ever corrupt
3. it assumes that there is nothing that can legally be done would still want to be kept secret, such as the purchasing of presents, acts taking place in a bedroom/bathroom, or just that some things are just nobody's freaking business, e.g. my best friend, more than a decade after finishing high school, still won't tell me what score he earned. It annoys me, but that's his right.

That said, these are personal rights. Governments should be transparent to their citizens, otherwise there is no way for the citizens to accurately know who to replace come election time. When the U.S. military shot a whole bunch of civilians from a helicopter, because they didn't take the time to properly identify the supposed enemy, that could have remained secret... and nothing would have changed. With that information becoming public, you would expect that there would be some procedural changes, because without them, the civilian head of the military can expect to be replaced at the next election.

I understand that there is a need for operational secrecy in many circumstances, but unless there is a reasonable timeline for everything that the government does to eventually become public, then the government shouldn't be doing it. If the government isn't doing something wrong, then they have nothing to hide. And if they are doing something wrong, then the public needs to know.

Democracy is predicated on people having relevant information on which to base their choice for leaders. Julian Assange has helped highlight areas where information has been incorrectly withheld, and just as importantly, he has highlighted the people who would incorrectly withhold information from the public.

Anyway, it's good to see a groundswell of organisations, including the Pirate Party hosting the #cablegate documents, and for every mirror or payment processor that is shut down, more spring up.

If you really want to help make a difference, then join your local Pirate Party as an alternative that won't dither about civil liberties and only endorse them when convenient.

/rant