The return of Stephen 'e-security' Conroy

By Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 02 June 2009 07:51

Opinion and Analysis

It's fair to say that in recent times, the Australian communications minister, Stephen Conroy, has been made to look a mite foolish. Sorry, let me give the man his rightful title - minister for broadband, communications and the digital economy.
(In Australia, it would be more accurate to say "fraudband" but never mind.)

Conroy, for the uninitiated, is the man behind the great internet filtering idea , a trial for which is ongoing. A list of blacklisted websites, which would be blocked once the filtering took effect, was leaked and caused Conroy quite some embarrassment.

The whole episode also exposed the minister as something of a neophyte when it comes to technology - what people on the net would call a n00b.

But, as the saying goes, you can't keep a good man down. So Conroy is back, with a spring in his step. Actually he'll be back on Friday this week, with what are obviously meant to be announcements that will salvage some of the lost face.

In reality, these announcements are going to be another indication that once again, Australia has something of a Luddite doing the job of communications minister. In the past we've had Richard "people-want-fast-broadband-only-to look at porn" Alston and Helen "who-listens-to-Radio-National?" Coonan.

Conroy's new initiatives include a national change your password day. Exactly who gave the man this idea is unknown - but there are enough consultants in Canberra with brilliant ideas like this.

I can see the crackers of the world pencilling in an international "writing keylogger trojans for Australia" day a week or so before this national change your password day.

And further down the track, there'll no doubt be a "stealing money from Australian online bank accounts" day set aside as well.

Only thing, we won't know about the latter two observances. Or rather we will, once we have a look at our accounts and see that we are a little poorer than we were.

Conroy also plans to announce an e-security awareness week and an initiative to educate primary and secondary school students about online security.

It would be far better if children were better educated and the money wasted on these initiatives was ploughed into education. But then who would make money by creating dumb videos advertising just such schemes?

Expectedly, the big banks in Australia are among the sponsors of these initiatives. They desperately need to look good by joining anything and everything after the recent announcement that they had been dipping into our pockets for more and more bank fees.

Plus, of course, among the sponsors are a couple of security companies and good old Microsoft, the company that has earned the moniker "Typhoid Mary of the internet."

I have a good book which Conroy might like to read; it's called Secrets and Lies and written by one Bruce Schneier. That's if the minister is serious about security.

Else, bring on more such announcements, plus a spot of fish and beer for the journos. It's time to spend some taxpayer funds on meaningless initiatives once again.