On Queensland elections and geography
Chris O’Regan writes: Re. “NSW Labor has to go Green or go home” (yesterday). Alex Mitchell’s claim that the Greens directed preferences to the ALP in the 2015 Queensland election “in all 89 seats” is wrong — mystifyingly so, when it’s a matter of public record that the Greens non-direction of preferences in Mount Ommaney very likely cost Labor that seat and with it the prospect of majority government.
Tom Richman writes: The last time I looked, Springwood is in the south of Brisbane not the Gold Coast.
Bypass and encrypt
Paul Hampton-Smith writes: Re. “Razer: why you, yes YOU, should care about data retention” (yesterday). Enough. We’ve complained enough about its impact and have been ignored. It will go ahead, even though no pedophiles or terrorists above the level of imbecile will be exposed. A new form of action on this data retention scheme is warranted: converting widespread concern into mass resistance. Concerned about privacy? Don’t like having your intimate details available to law enforcement agencies without need for a warrant? Want to guard against the inevitable event when that juicy store of data is breached by super-hackers? Actively living life within the law as you know it, but concerned that some innocent connection could set the dogs on you? Dislike the scenarios in which data records can be used to identify journalistic sources and whistleblowers? Answer: subscribe to a VPN. You will add to the estimated 200,000 VPN users masquerading as US residents to access Netflix. Collectively we can neuter the effectiveness of any data retention scheme.
Paul Hampton-Smith: I’d choose another country other than the US as the endpoint for my VPN (and I’m about to get a subscription as soon as this fascist law gets through parliament with the uncritical help of Labor). The USA aren’t backward in spying on US citizens. Have your VPN endpoint in a country that protects its citizen’s privacy.
For the record I don’t use netflix, in fact using any streaming service is impossible for me with a 1.2MBPS speed that is the fastest available to me and I’m living in the sixth largest city in Australia. I would have had NBN installed this year if Labor won the last election but now… a faster connection isn’t even on the horizon.
Yeah let’s just lie down in The Position and cough up money for a VPN and defeat it with our Market Rays
While the VPN option is certainly worth looking at, I have yet to hear any way around the fact that every mobile phone call is logged, captured, stored, with my location and the number I called, and is available for pretty much anyone to see.
How do you get a mobile phone other than with your own identification, which basically gives everything up.
Any suggestions welcome.