Random Thoughts.

13 November 2001

We had an election this past weekend. John Howard and the Liberal Party are back in power for another term. I'm not too happy about this, mostly because I feel the Howard government's policies represent Australia to be narrow-minded and driven by fear. Australia has offered support and contributed troops for the American war on terrorism, yet we turn away boatloads of refugees from countries like Afghanistan. People who have risked their lives to flee oppressive governments because they have no other choice, who are victimised by unscrupulous people-smugglers, who pack themselves on rickety, slipshod boats to cross the unforgiving ocean: these people are called "illegals", "queue-jumpers", and in one case, "terrorist boat people" by ill-informed Australians. Their boats are blocked by the Navy. When they commit shocking acts (jumping overboard, setting their boats on fire) out of desperation and frustration, we treat them with contempt and never question the circumstances that led them to make these choices. If they do manage to make it ashore, they are locked up in detention centres which are more dehumanising than prisons. The media sometimes reports on the plight of refugees here, but the talk I hear everyday tends to gloss over their situation and focus on labelling them undesirables and keeping them out.

Apart from the Aborigines, all Australians are migrants or descended from migrants (Even the Aborigines, if you go back really really really far...). Many, like the refugees, had no real choice but to come here. Their circumstances may have been different, but hardship is hardship. We're all human beings. You would think there could be more compassion. I know that Australia is deceptively large, it's true that most of the continent is inhospitable desert, I know that we can't support as many people as appearances suggest. But that's no excuse for narrow-mindedness and vilification of those who wish to come here.

There were other election issues, of course. The GST. Privatisation. The war on terrorism. People favour incumbents in times of uncertainty. I'm not an astute political commentator, but I do think that the election campaign played on public fears and the fact that people are too busy and overwhelmed to take the time to properly assess what's going on behind the simplistic media headlines.

I hope that in the future I can remain proud of my adopted home.

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I have had a couple of requests that this journal provide a guestbook for people to write comments in. I am considering it. The difficult part is that I don't have a lot of current web programming experience, and I don't have control over the server, which I think might be necessary to link the comments in with the relevant journal entries. I might use a blog if I can be satisfied that it won't take too much time to maintain.

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I've been reading a book about hackers which documents the Australian computer underground in the late 1980's and early 1990's. It fascinates me how all this stuff was going on when I was the same age as the hackers. I was already a geek; I knew how to use a PC, I even did some programming. I can see the allure of sneaking around inside other computers just for the sake of exploring and mastering the technical challenge. Most of these guys weren't malicious; they got caught because they were careless at the wrong time and too addicted to stop when they knew better.

I first learned the emotive power of the word "hack" when I got a job as a data entry clerk for small medical research office in 1994. The database administrator nearly had a fit when I naively suggested that I just "hack" to figure out how the system was set up. I stayed there one year, but I nearly lost that job on the first day...

It's amazing how many people don't change their default administrator password. A lot of systems documented in the book I'm reading were easily penetrated by using backdoors that came propped open on delivery. Some of my colleagues can attest to the fact that this can be a problem - I've changed a few of their screensavers and desktop backgrounds, all from the comfort of my own cubicle.

In this age where everyone and his dog is on the internet, you'd be surprised at how useful a malicious hacker might find your obscure, innocuous home computer. My favourite paranoid security guru is Steve Gibson, and he has some good information on how to secure your system on his pages at GRC.COM.