Digital Commons Network^™

Turning Seventy, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

The author's ruminations on the occasion of him reaching the age of 70 years old.

Denis Kevans: Poet, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A brief account of the poetry of Australian social movement poet Denis Kevans (1939-2005).

Using A Social-Ethical Framework To Evaluate Location-Based Services In An Internet Of Things World, Roba Abbas, Katina Michael, Mg Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The idea for an Internet of Things has matured since its inception as a concept in 1999. People today speak openly of a Web of Things and People, and even more broadly of an Internet of Everything. As our relationships become more and more complex and enmeshed, through the use of advanced technologies, we have pondered on ways to simplify flows of communications, to collect meaningful data, and use them to make timely decisions with respect to optimisation and efficiency. At their core, these flows of communications are pathways to registers of interaction, and tell the intricate story of outputs …

Groomed For War, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

An account of Australia's preparations for war before 1914, with the focus on the system of compulsory military training for boys and youths introduced in 1911.

Radical Ruminations, Rowan Cahill, Terry Irving

Rowan Cahill

Beginning in 2010, historians Rowan Cahill and Terry Irving made wide ranging and reflective diary style contributions to their blog 'Radical Sydney/Radical History' about the nature of 'radical history', the process of being 'radical historians', politics, and political activism. This is that body of work.

Mullen's Choices, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Obituary/biographical note concerning Geoff Mullen (1947-2014), and his anti-conscription activities (1967-1972) in Australia during the Vietnam War.

Enslaved, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

This performance art piece was delivered by Katina Michael at the Intelligence Squared (IQ2) debate at the City Recital Hall, Sydney, Australia. The topic of the debate was “Are we becoming enslaved by our technology?” Joining Katina on the affirmative side was Crikey’s correspondent for politics, media and economics Mr Bernard Keene, and Dimension Data’s general manager of security and internet safety Alastair McGibbon. On the negative side was Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, backed by journalist, filmmaker and blogger, Mr Antony Loewenstein, and Ms Asher Wolf, a self-described ‘information activist’. The debate was moderated by Dr …

Persona Categories: Highly Sought Places For Aussies To Live, Lachlan Hastings, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The site has been touted as potentially useful to retailers trying to determine where to locate future outlets.

However, Australian Privacy Foundation vice-chair Katina Michael said companies applying profiles could get it dramatically wrong or right.

Michael said that consumers had a choice to make in light of the "big data" trend, which often mischaracterised people.

"We can continue to believe the rhetoric that says: "We are doing no harm to individuals, it is hardly tracking when profiling small neighbourhoods"... or we can begin to demand an end to the on-selling of personal information,"she said.

Forum Proceedings From “Uavs: Pros Vs Cons Symposium” In Toronto, Canada, June 2013, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), widely referred to as drones, are becoming increasingly relevant in civilian as well as military applications. UAS have been used by emergency services to help respond to and map environmental crises, to find missing people, to fight fires, and respond to traffic accidents. Their use in policing and border patrol functions is being trialled in many Western countries. Like other recent technologies (mobile phones etc), as they become cheaper and easier to use, they are likely to become much more prevalent in civilian life across a range of applications.

This conference will examine the current state …

Connected: To Everyone And Everything, Katherine Albrecht, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The activist group CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) was founded in 1999 by Katherine Albrecht, the very same year that Kevin Ashton co-founder and executive director of the then Auto-ID Center at MIT made a presentation to Proctor & Gamble with a title that included the phrase “Internet of Things”. According to Ashton, “the most numerous and important routers of all” are people but people have limitations and are not very good at capturing data about objects in the physical world. In 2001, Ashton’s automatic identification vision had become a lot clearer. At the Auto-ID Center during …

Social Implications Of Wearable Computing And Augmediated Reality In Every Day Life (Ieee Symposium On Technology And Society, Istas13), Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

It was in July 2012 that Steve Mann and I corresponded on the possibility of hosting a conference on wearable computing in Toronto, Canada. Steve had just returned home from a family holiday to France and publicly blogged about an unfortunate incident that had happened to him while away. On 17th July 2012 he posted: “Physical assault by McDonald’s for wearing Digital Eye Glass”. We both knew the timing was right for such an event that was not just a technical engineering or applied orientation on the theme of smart worlds, but an event that would grapple with the dichotomies …

Getting The Balance Right Between Information Security And Privacy Rights, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

- Laws, regulations, industry guidelines, and codes for new technologies and their use - The balance between encouraging innovation and future proofing technology-related policy - The difference between the existence of legislation and the enforcement of that legislation - Citizen responses to the fear of policing and security controls

Big Data: New Opportunities And New Challenges, Katina Michael, Keith Miller

Associate Professor Katina Michael

We can live with many of the uncertainties of big data for now, with the hope that its benefits will outweigh its harms, but we shouldn't blind ourselves to the possible irreversibility of changes—whether good or bad—to society.

It's no secret that both private enterprise and government seek greater insights into people's behaviors and sentiments. Organizations use various analytical techniques—from crowdsourcing to genetic algorithms to neural networks to sentiment analysis—to study both structured and unstructured forms of data that can aid product and process discovery, productivity, and policy-making. This data is collected from numerous sources including sensor networks, government data …

Privacy Issues And Solutions In Social Network Sites, Xi Chen, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The boom of the internet and the explosion of new technologies have brought with them new challenges and thus new connotations of privacy. Clearly, when people deal with e-government and e-business, they do not only need the right to be let alone, but also to be let in secret. Not only do they need freedom of movement, but also to be assured of the secrecy of their information. Solove [6] has critiqued traditional definitions of privacy and argued that they do not address privacy issues created by new online technologies. Austin [7] also asserts: “[w]e do need to sharpen and …

Indian Millennials: Are Microchip Implants A More Secure Technology For Identification And Access Control?, Christine Perakslis, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

This mixed methods study with a sequential explanatory strategy explored qualitatively the statistically significant quantitative findings relative to Indian respondents’ perceptions about RFID (radio frequency identification) transponders implanted into the human body. In the first analysis phase of the study, there was a significant chi-square analysis reported (χ2 = 56.64, df = 3, p = .000) relative to the perception of small business owners (N = 453) that implanted chips are a more secure form of identification and/or access control in organizations and the respondents’ country of residence. Countries under study included Australia, India, the UK and US. The country …

The Value Of Government Mandated Location-Based Services In Emergencies In Australia, Anas Aloudat, Katina Michael, Roba Abbas, Mutaz Al-Debei

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The adoption of mobile technologies for emergency management has the capacity to save lives. In Australia in February 2009, the Victorian Bushfires claimed 173 lives, the worst peace-time disaster in the nation’s history. The Australian government responded swiftly to the tragedy by going to tender for mobile applications that could be used during emergencies, such as mobile alerts and location services. These applications, which are becoming increasingly accurate with the evolution of positioning techniques, have the ability to deliver personalized information direct to the citizen during crises, complementing traditional broadcasting mediums like television and radio. Indeed governments have a responsibility …

Commentary On: Mann, Steve (2012): Wearable Computing, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

In Professor Steve Mann- inventor, physicist, engineer, mathematician, scientist, designer, developer, project director, filmmaker, artist, instrumentalist, author, photographer, actor, activist- we see so much of the paradigmatic classical Greek philosopher. I recall asking Steve if technology shaped society or society shaped technology. He replied along the lines that the question was superfluous. Steve instead pointed to praxis, from which all theory, lessons or skills stem, are practiced, embodied and realized. Steve has always been preoccupied by the application of his ideas into form. In this way too, he can be considered a modern day Leonardo Da Vinci.

Book Review: Securing The Cloud: Cloud Computer Security Techniques And Tactics, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

With so much buzz around Cloud Computing, books like this one written by Winkler are much in demand. Winkler’s experience in the computing business shines through and as readers we are spoiled with a great deal of useful strategic information- a jam packed almost 300 page volume on securing the cloud.

In Memoriam: Associate Professor Dr Elaine Lawrence, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Despite being a graduate of the rigorous Bachelor of Information Technology at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in 1996, I was unfortunate in that I missed being taught by Associate Professor Elaine Lawrence who began working at UTS in 1990 as a Lecturer in Computing Science. Dr Lawrence became a senior lecturer in 2000, and subsequently an associate professor in 2006. Our paths crossed in 2002 when I was tasked to deliver a new course entitled “eBusiness Principles” in my first year of lecturing at the University of Wollongong, and after an initial scurry to find an adequate textbook, …

Sousveillance And The Social Implications Of Point Of View Technologies In The Law Enforcement Sector, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Policing today has become a high-tech affair; especially in the provision of incident event tracking and reporting systems increasingly being used to provide evidence in a court of law. These in-car video (ICV) and body worn recording systems are said to increase convictions and eliminate false claims made by defendants, providing documentary support to police officers and their associated actions in an incident. But today, new technologies such as smart phones equipped with cameras and global positioning system chipsets can also be found in the hands of the everyday citizen, used to capture everyday happenings and distributed to social networks …

Book Review: Security Risk Management: Building An Information Security Risk Management Program From The Ground Up, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

In an age of outsourcing tasks that are not considered to be a core competency of the business, organisations have often relied on external consultants for matters pertaining to security. In actual fact, most companies could have utilized existing skill-sets in-house to produce a security risk management program, if only they knew what steps to take, and how to go about it all. Evan Wheeler in his book on information security risk management does just that- he equips professionals tasked with security, with the thinking required to create a program that is more preoccupied with the complex strategic-level questions than …

Location Privacy Under Dire Threat As Uberveillance Stalks The Streets, Katina Michael, Roger Clarke

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Location tracking and monitoring applications have proliferated with the arrival of smart phones that are equipped with onboard global positioning system (GPS) chipsets. It is now possible to locate a smart phone user down to 10 metres of accuracy on average. Innovators have been quick to capitalise on this emerging market by introducing novel pedestrian tracking technologies which can denote the geographic path of a mobile user. At the same time there is contention by law enforcement personnel over the need for a warrant process to track an individual in a public space. This paper considers the future of location …

Implementing Namebers Using Microchip Implants: The Black Box Beneath The Skin, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The use of electronic-based physical access cards to secure premises such as government buildings and large corporate offices has been in operation since the inception of bar code and magnetic-stripe cards in the 1970s. Over time, for secure access control, these first generation card technologies based on optical character recognition (OCR) and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) were replaced by more sophisticated technologies such as smart cards and biometrics, containing encrypted data and techniques which were more difficult to dupe or to replicate \cite{michael2003a}.

An employee today wanting to gain access to their place of work, typically carries a photo …

The Social And Behavioral Implications Of Location-Based Services, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The social and behavioral implications of location-based services (LBS) are only now beginning to come to light in advanced markets where the services have been adopted by just a little over half the market (Microsoft 2011). Depending on one’s definition of what constitutes location-based services, statistics on the level of adoption differ considerably. While it is helpful to provide as broad a list of applications as possible in what constitutes LBS (e.g. everything from in-vehicle navigation systems to downloading a map using a computer), it can also cloud the real picture forming behind this emerging technology. Emerging not in the …

Monitoring People Using Location-Based Social Networking And Its Negative Impact On Trust: An Exploratory Contextual Analysis Of Five Types Of “Friend” Relationships, Sarah Fusco, Katina Michael, Anas Aloudat, Roba Abbas

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Location based social networking (LBSN) applications are part of a new suite of social networking tools. LBSN is the convergence between location based services (LBS) and online social networking (OSN). LBSN applications offer users the ability to look up the location of another “friend” remotely using a smart phone, desktop or other device, anytime and anywhere. Users invite their friends to participate in LBSN and there is a process of consent that follows. This paper explores the potential impact of LBSN upon trust in society. It looks at the willingness of individuals to share their location data with family, friends, …

Cabaret Q - Centre Of Contemporary Arts, Cairns, Christopher Ryan

Christopher Ryan

No abstract provided.

An Interview With Mr Peter Mahy Of Howells Llp Who Represented S And Marper At The European Court Of Human Rights, Katina Michael, Peter Mahy

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Mr Peter Mahy, Partner at Howells LLP and the lawyer who represented S & Marper in front of the Grand Chamber at the European Court of Human Rights was interviewed by Katina Michael on the 10th of October 2009 while she was studying towards a Masters of Transnational Crime Prevention in the Faculty of Law at the University of Wollongong. In 2010 Peter Mahy received the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year award for his contribution to the field. Mahy received his honours law degree from Sheffield University and a Masters in Criminology from the University of Cambridge. He did …

The European Court Of Human Rights Ruling Against The Policy Of Keeping Fingerprints And Dna Samples Of Criminal Suspects In Britain, Wales And Northern Ireland: The Case Of S. And Marper V United Kingdom, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (the PACE) contained powers for the taking of fingerprints, and samples in the form of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). In 2001, Section 64(1A) of the PACE was substituted with Section 82 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act. The change to legislation meant that a suspect of a crime would have their fingerprints and samples permanently stored on the police national computer (PNC) even after having been acquitted. This paper critically analyses the circumstances of the landmark case of S. AND MARPER V. THE UNITED KINGDOM in two …

The Socio-Ethical Considerations Surrounding Government Mandated Location-Based Services During Emergencies: An Australian Case Study, Anas Aloudat, K. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The adoption of mobile technologies for emergency management has the capacity to save lives. In Australia in February 2009, the Victorian Bushfires claimed 173 lives, the worst peace-time disaster in the nation’s history. The Australian government responded swiftly to the tragedy by going to tender for mobile applications that could be used during emergencies, such as mobile alerts and location services. These applications have the ability to deliver personalized information direct to the citizen during crises, complementing traditional broadcasting mediums like television and radio. Indeed governments have a responsibility to their citizens to safeguard them against both natural and human-made …

Towards A State Of Uberveillance, M.G. Michael, K. Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Überveillance is an emerging concept, and neither its application nor its power have yet fully arrived [38]. For some time, Roger Clarke’s [12, p. 498] 1988 dataveillance concept has been prevalent: the “systematic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of the actions of one or more persons.” Almost twenty years on, technology has developed so much and the national security context has altered so greatly [52], that there is a pressing need to formulate a new term to convey both the resent reality, and the Realpolitik (policy primarily based on power) of our times. However, if …