2016 census. One step closer to the police state

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Originally Posted by cfranks

The driver was obviously taking care, just in case you were imaging!

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

If it was in certain spots in Melb, they are just looking for luxury cars to steal :-)

Andrew

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by Kunama

Back to the topic....
Does anyone else think that some people are making mountains out of mole hills?

Yep!

[AndrewJ]

Gday Matt

Do you have any statistics to support that statement,

Nope ( re specifically stealing luxury cars ), just watch the news each night. Reports of people now running their own nightly patrols in certain areas would indicate that it is more prevalent than people let on.
Interesting tidbit was shown on last nights news when an FOI request forced the coppers to release their maps of crime hotspots.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vic...592-1469841583
Maybe the next ones will contain the latest info ( but i doubt it ).

perhaps they could add another question to the Census

As i mentioned, its only in specific local areas, and only recent, so census level data wouldnt help, as its too out of date.
Ands lets face it, if you are talking crime, most of this census data wont prevent anything. Even the new metadata laws and myki/citylink data just makes cleaning up afterwards simpler. But you probably already know that ;-)

Andrew

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by Tandum

I think the real issue here is everyone in the country logging into a government computer system at the same time.
Personally I can't see it handling the load but if it does they're throwing way too much of my money at IT

That was my first thought. Newspapers would already have headlines for the crash ready to go.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Wealth is power and it trumps any democracy hands down.

Correct.

Our government is no less corrupt than many overseas, we just do it in a more sanitised way, by the political donations system.

Have a look at the internal election analysis. One of the key outcomes were the superannuation ammendments, and the decision is that the change was a bad idea, not because it's bad policy, but because it would affect political donations.
Want to build more apartment towers? Make sure you attend plenty of fundraiser dinners.
Want to quietly stop a rail project and build your tollroad instead? Make sure you are high up the party donors list.

That's not to say we are anywhere near being like Nigeria or wherever, but that we have a fair democracy is an absolute illusion. Money and the right connections beats needs of the average voter every time.

[gregbradley]

I agree the Census should not be allowed to require names.

It was unthinkable that the Nazis wiped out Jews in Germany a supposedly civilised country at the time.

What happened to all the demands for privacy not that long ago. Has everyone gone into apathy already?

Greg.

[Tropo-Bob (Bob)]

Well the moderates are doing well to keep their cool, but the Grumpy Old Men seem to having most of the say.

I think I will stay with the main issue!

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

What happened to all the demands for privacy not that long ago. Has everyone gone into apathy already?

Greg.

Agreed. There were the same claims of security and encryption by the NSW government about their firearms registry.

It got hacked.

Now every sporting shooter has good reason to fear that criminals know what they have and where it is stored. What are the consequences when census data is inevitably stolen/leaked I wonder?

[Nikolas (Nik)]

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

If that were true, why in Victoria did we sell off a whole bunch of schools ( and their playing grounds ) recently???
Now we find we dont have enough schools, and have nowhere to build new ones???
How did that happen if they had good data???????
Greed and incompetence makes a lot of this data relatively useless these days.

Andrew

1992 wasn't recently and it was a jobs for the boys deal. Sell off school get then future premier's real estate company to sell the land. When he became premier he lasted 2 years he was that inept

[doppler (Rick)]

Might have to order a paper form (addressed "to the residents" of course) the online one will spit chips if we don't fill in all the required fields. apparently they are keeping everyone names and info on file from now on.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-bu...19-gq9crr.html

[Nikolas (Nik)]

I'd like to know how the servers will cope when millions of people all og in on the 9th to do this census. Reminds me if the ultranet debacle when 40000 teachers in victoria all were asked to log in on launch day and it died and never recovered.

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

I agree the Census should not be allowed to require names.

It was unthinkable that the Nazis wiped out Jews in Germany a supposedly civilised country at the time.

What happened to all the demands for privacy not that long ago. Has everyone gone into apathy already?

Greg.

Not this little black duck!

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by AussieTrooper

What are the consequences when census data is inevitably stolen/leaked I wonder?

There are none. The ABS bleats about security and right to know access but the reality is government systems leak like proverbial sieves. Nobody can be held directly accountable and only an idiot claims a perfectly secure system. It does not exist.

[doppler (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Nikolas

I'd like to know how the servers will cope when millions of people all og in on the 9th to do this census. Reminds me if the ultranet debacle when 40000 teachers in victoria all were asked to log in on launch day and it died and never recovered.

The abs was one of the first govt depts to use computers so they are probably ready and waiting.

I wonder how much tech they will use ie. google for example knows when you are using a vpn , will the abs block you from logging on while going through a vpn and hiding your ip address?

[AndrewJ]

Gday Nik

1992 wasn't recently and it was a jobs for the boys deal.

It was "recently" if we are talking about using census data to plan for future growth. Imagine if St Kilda road, or the main grid of Melbourne was originally made using roads of only one lane each way, because thats all that was required at the time.

Agree it was a jobs for the boys, ( or more like selling the family silver to allow you to say you have a balanced budget ).
As in my earlier posts, i contended that census data isnt actually used to plan for the future in many cases, as its now based on how vulnerable political seats are, and who complains the loudest.

Andrew

[AndrewJ]

Gday Bob

Well the moderates are doing well to keep their cool

The moderates always keep their cool until they are affected.
I would liken it to a recent sad case down here re how people offending on parole was kept "relatively" quiet. Their privacy overrode public interest. Then a close member of the ABC radio community got murdered, and all of a sudden, it was front page news, and it was dissected in detail as to why/how it could happen.
Why???? What about all the others who only got a passing mention??

Andrew

[Tropo-Bob (Bob)]

Gday Andrew,

You have strayed off topic, in mentioning the very sad death of Jill Meagher, but no argument from me about being tough on sadistic sex offenders and that all victims matter.

Indeed, below is a Letter to the Editor that I had published in the Cairns Post, coincidentally and sadly about a week before Jill's death:

Talk of releasing Michiko’s killer causes me to feel anxious for the safety of our community. Sex offenders are notoriously difficult to rehabilitate. Even when psychologists judge that offenders have are deserving of another chance, too many times, it was later found that offenders merely said the things that they knew that psychologists/counsellors wanted to hear.

It is time to lift the bar here. Various attributes like empathy and self control relate to specific regions within the brain, so we need to progress along the path of using brain scans to judge if offenders have psychologically changed significantly over time. Used as a forensic aide, such scans over time could help better determine the risk of releasing an offender back into the community.

When an offender has committed a murder related to sexual gratification, the community is entitled to strong protection from repeat performances. Hence, we need better and empirically based risk assessments along with laws allowing such offenders to be held until they can be fairly demonstrated not to be an unacceptable danger to the community if released.

[xelasnave]

Yes but they are not terrorists which it seems are worthy of keeping in goal after serving their sentence ....or at least that was proposed last week.
Alex

[Nikolas (Nik)]

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

Gday Nik

It was "recently" if we are talking about using census data to plan for future growth. Imagine if St Kilda road, or the main grid of Melbourne was originally made using roads of only one lane each way, because thats all that was required at the time.

Agree it was a jobs for the boys, ( or more like selling the family silver to allow you to say you have a balanced budget ).
As in my earlier posts, i contended that census data isnt actually used to plan for the future in many cases, as its now based on how vulnerable political seats are, and who complains the loudest.

Andrew

Hey Andrew
Actually they used supposed census data at the time where the school numbers were going down, take Willamstown as an example. The so called census figures estimated downward trends in school populations and a swathe of schools were closed.
Then they built the rifle range, and as our intrepid treasurer Costello told people to go forth and multiply by offering baby bonuses left right and centre.
Census data does not take into account private enterprise or Pervy treasurers

[Allan_L (Allan)]

Originally Posted by Nikolas

I'd like to know how the servers will cope when millions of people all og in on the 9th to do this census. Reminds me if the ultranet debacle when 40000 teachers in victoria all were asked to log in on launch day and it died and never recovered.

According to the ABS Census Help website, fear not:

If everyone is completing their Census online, can the system cope?
There is plenty of reserve capacity to cope if more than 80 per cent of Australians choose to complete the Census online (expected peak load of 250 submissions per second, system capacity of 360 submissions per second). This figure is based on testing and take-up rates of online options for international Censuses.

http://help.census.abs.gov.au/help/i...lete#backtotop

What could possibly go wrong ?