The lack of an adult classification for video games. The South Australian (and Tasmanian) laws dictating you can’t comment on political news online anonymously. The whole bloody Internet filter. They’re all evidence that politicians don’t really understand this technology thingy that now plays a part in almost every aspect of our daily lives. The latest bit of proof is even better – NSW Transport Minister David Campbell accused the SMH of “hacking” a yet-to-be-launched transport website, when all they did was type in the URL.
The story goes like this: The NSW state government has completely fucked up public transport. Last Sunday, they had big plans to announce a shiny new plan to fix it (after blowing millions on scrapped plans). But on the previous Friday, the SMH received a tip to check out a website: nswtransportblueprint.com.au. They typed in the URL and started printing off the documents, two days before the official announcement was due. There was no password, no security, nothing.
However, that didn’t stop the transport minister from coming out all guns blazing when they published the information before the Government’s planned announcement. He accused them of hacking the website and claimed the matter had been referred to the police.
Since then, it seems that somebody has educated Mr. Campbell how to type in a URL, and that doing that doesn’t equate to “hacking” – and he’s since been forced to apologise. But still, it makes you wonder exactly why we pay these clowns when they obviously don’t have a clue about today’s modern technological tools…
[SMH]
psy
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 9:40 AMwhy does that come at no surprise. apparently the most technically competent politicians fail upwards.
Shane
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 10:30 AMThe truly sad reality is the almost none of the politicians actually have any clue about their individual portfolios any way.
It’s the only profession where you get to make decisions without having any experience or qualifications with in the field you are representing (nor do you actually need any to get the job).
And you wounder what’s wrong with our society
N3mrak
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 10:47 AMwebsite: nswtransportblueprint.com.au
ROFL that URL is like something out of a bad spy movie!
“Lets put all the secret documents in a folder called “Secret Documents”. No one will EVER think of looking in there”
Steve
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 12:08 PMComment of the week FTW!
Eric
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:13 AMN3mrak, your observation is just spot on!
And Shane, it just seems that these days politicians are people that can’t get a real job. How they fall into big decision making roles is beyond me.
Having absolutely no credible background these days particularly in business roles will have employers laughing you all the way to the door. Why this is tolerable in government, I have no Idea.
Michael Visser
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:25 AMThe web development company is at fault for making the website so readily available to the public prior to launch; this coming from the opinion of an experienced web developer.
Rahul Khanna
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:50 PMTotally agree – as scary as their lack of technical proficiency is, this particular fiasco is mostly the web developer’s fault.
Namarrgon
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:46 AMTo be fair, he was just quoting what Bang the Table (the web hosting company) had told him – they said it was secure, and he believed them.
Then Bang the Table admitted that they screwed up, and the documents weren’t in any sort of secure form after all, and Campbell apologised (albeit after shifting the blame onto them).
AFAICT, the documents were supposed to be in a password-protected area (so that they could be accessed by authorised people no doubt), but the password protection was applied only to the front page, and nothing deeper. Pretty basic mistake, though Campbell should have had the sense to double-check the facts before spouting off publicly about a major newspaper.
Needless to say, Bang the Table lost themselves a major customer, and most of their reputation.
bob
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:08 PMTransport Minister
not
Information Minister
not
Technology Minister
he should watch what he says when talking about things he doesn’t know about (like we all should).. and I’m as antigovernment as the next person, but hey. He’s human, and we all make stupid mistakes trying to bluff our way through something when we haven’t got a clue. Political points scoring is a big carrot for him to go for, he just fucked up trying to bite it.
moggyx
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:10 PMIt is a sad reflection on our politicians….. and yet we have no recourse to get them fired aside from waiting for the next election to roll around. This is then followed by some white guy’s white mate in a suit filling the same role with just as little a clue as the previous guy in the same role.
* Not saying all politicians are racists, just that most of them fall into the suited, pudgy to fat middle aged white male category, with a few token females thrown in. A bit of colour might do wonders to both major parties
Sam Brady
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:24 PMI must admit. Having read the article I was wondering who at the SMH made up the espionage dept that would have the skills to “hack” something. Now that you’ve cleared it up, its as funny as it is infuriating. abc.com.au reported on it and is also presently reporting on http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/25/2829522.htm with similar if not as great a degree of ignorance.
What kind of idiotic web department publishes the material on the internet before an announcement anyway?