Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Cyber of Thoughtcrimes: Obfuscating with transparency I Government rejects Google's plans for Sydney


Bill Buckley’s conservative irregulars. In its early days, the National Review’s staff included a former spokesman for Leon Trotsky, a nocturnal ex-Communist,  Russell Kirk...and Jozef Imrich 

Cybercriminals now targeting tax pros to cash in on fraudulent returns


Tax fraud is big business for cyber criminals. Last year Internet crimes netted the perpetrators $445 billion, with tax fraud as a primary focus, according to IBM Security, which monitors cyber crimes. "We had about 75 tax professionals report that they had been victims of some sort of a tax payer breach. So that unfortunately is ...

When Identity Thieves Hack Your Accountant Krebs on Security

Identity thieves who specialize in tax refund fraud have been busy of late hacking online accounts at multiple tax preparation firms and using them to file phony refund .....


 


DHS Is Falling Short on Securing Its Classified Intelligence Systems
Nextgov - April 11, 2018
The Homeland Security Department isn’t doing enough to secure classified information on its intelligence systems, according to a report summary out Wednesday from the department’s inspector general



   Government rejects Google's plans for Sydney.
 


   Findings of Australia’s .au domain review released.


AusPost to coax bill payments via smartphone, smart home


Public servants free to criticise under fake names: tribunal.
Such comments cannot possibly reflect badly on their employers, the AAT found in ruling for former public servant Michaela Banerji who tweets as @LaLegale.
 
A former Immigration official sacked over tweets critical of Australia's asylum seeker policy has won a fight for compensation, after an appeals tribunal found her dismissal was unlawful and described government efforts to restrict anonymous comments from its employees as Orwellian.The decision on Monday will redirect scrutiny to the Immigration Department's dismissal of Michaela Banerji for tweeting criticisms of detention policies, and challenges Australian Public Service rules stopping public servants from expressing their political views on social media.
'Thoughtcrime': Immigration official sacked for tweets wins compensation


 Reviving a demoralised workforce at the UK's Serious Fraud Office

 Aspiring MP nabbed for fraud

The Guardian: “A businessman has won his legal action to remove search results about a criminal conviction in a landmark “right to be forgotten” case that could have wide-ranging repercussions.  


IRS Says Fewer Than 100 People Have Reported Bitcoin Holdings So Far Investopedia Yves: “Wellie, the IRS could have a lot of fun if it wants to!”


Multinationals mollycoddled: former ATO official calls for tax secrecy to go - Mike West - Martin Lock



Facebook, Google and other tech companies are accused of stealing our data or at least of using it without our permission to become extraordinarily rich. Now is the time, say the critics, to stand up and take back our data. Ours, ours, ours.
In this way of thinking, our data is like our lawnmower and Facebook is a pushy neighbor who saw that our garage door was open, took our lawnmower, made a quick buck mowing people’s lawns, and now refuses to give our lawnmower back. Take back our lawnmower!
The reality is far different.
What could be more ours than our friends? Yet I have hundreds of friends on Facebook, most of whom I don’t know well and have never met. But my Facebook friends are friends. We share common interests and, most of the time, I’m happy to see what they are thinking and doing and I’m pleased when they show interest in what I’m up to. If, before Facebook existed, I had been asked to list “my friends,” I would have had a hard time naming ten friends, let alone hundreds. My Facebook friends didn’t exist before Facebook. My Facebook friendships are not simply my data—they are a unique co-creation of myself, my friends, and, yes, Facebook.


Obfuscating with transparency, Jeremy Berg. Science 13 Apr 2018: Vol. 360, Issue 6385, pp. 133. DOI: 10.1126/science.aat8121
“Transparency is critical when it comes to decision-making that broadly affects the public, particularly when it comes to policies purported to be grounded in scientific evidence. The scientific community has been increasingly focused on improving the transparency of research through initiatives that represent good-faith efforts to enhance the robustness of scientific findings and to increase access to and utility of data that underlie research. Yet, concerns about transparency associated with scientific results continue to emerge in political discussions. Most recently in the United States, a new proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would eliminate the use of publications in its policy discussions for which all underlying data are not publicly available. Here, a push for transparency appears actually to be a mechanism for suppressing important scientific evidence in policy-making, thereby threatening the public’s well-being…”





Property and Construction Forum

Inquiry into financial related crime

We should ensure that sunlight is the best disinfectant and that "key 'raw' intelligence makes its way to me and the Executive and that it not be 'massaged

Martin Bowles once noted give permission for people to think differently, to question the status quo – it can stop complacency and resigned acceptance of 'that's how we've always done it
 Thoughtcrime immigration official sacked for tweets wins compensation

 

Tax office sees us all as 'cheats and liars' - Robert Gottliebsenand Richard Edmonds SC

 

One of the aims of my weekly newsletter is to give you an insight into what it’s like to work at The Age and to explain how some of our stories originate. Or, as one of my reporters inappropriately puts it – open the kimono. Business reporter Adele Ferguson’s latest project – following on from the exposés she did with Sarah Danckert on retirement home operators ripping off the elderly and struggling franchisees associated with the Retail Food Group – concerned the overwhelming power of the Australian Taxation Office.
The seeds of the project were sown in September, when Adele had lunch with a lawyer who suggested that she should take a look at how the ATO operated. He said – and her subsequent stories backed this up – that the ATO’s extraordinary powers, combined with a lack of oversight, had caused major issues for, in particular, owners of small to medium-sized businesses. He said most lawyers, tax agents, lobby groups and taxpayers were too scared to speak up for fear of retribution. Politicians stayed quiet because they didn’t want to do anything that might compromise the ATO’s revenue-raising abilities.
Not surprisingly, the conversation piqued Adele’s interest, and a few subsequent events meant the seeds sprouted roots. A few days later, small-business advocate Ken Phillips handed Adele a confidential paper that he had written about the unbridled powers of the ATO and the devastating effect it was having on some people’s lives. 

A Note From The Editor - April 11 - The Age

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