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]