Remember #CensusFail? 

Census 2021 cyber security measures only 'partly appropriate', audit finds

https://www.zdnet.com/article/australian-2021-census-preparation-gets-marginal-pass-mark-from-auditor/

• The Census happens again next year, and the ABS still has work to do to avoid a repeat of 2016 mistakes. 
• As a quick reminder, the official story is the 2016 Census was downed by a series of distributed-denial-of-service attacks
• ZDNet points out the 2021 census is moving from on-premise servers to Amazon’s AWS - which should at least help with load
• An Auditor general’s report, released yesterday found that the ABS systems were “partly effective” and “largely appropriate” -  faint praise indeed. 
• But the report concludes the ABS “has not put in place arrangements to ensure that improvements” on governance, reporting, change management or infrastructure. 
• Anyone who works in IT will be shaking their damn head at this. 

Want an electric car? Head to Canberra. 

A follow up on electric cars from last week(?) 

• Getting a look at what progressive electric car policy would look like in Australia, with the ACT announcing that it will offer electric car buyers free rego and interest free loans up to $15,000 
• Currently, the ACT already provides a stamp duty exemption to electric car buyers, as well as a 20 per cent discount on registration.

ACT to offer electric car buyers free registration and $15,000 loans 

The ACT is set to be the most electric vehicle-friendly jurisdiction in Australia, offering interest-free loans and free rego

Apple’s iOS 14 Privacy features Delayed until 2021 

Apple doubles down on upcoming iOS 14 privacy features, slams Facebook for collecting 'as much data as possible'

• One key feature of iOS 14 is App Tracking Transparency
• This will allow users to see how often an app tracks it’s location, and what other apps and services the app then shares that data between. 
• Today, many free apps send a lot of information back to large advertising companies - mainly Youtube and Facebook 
• if you have a free weather app on your phone, unless it’s from the bureau of meteorology, it is undoubtedly selling your location history. 
• Petey’s Sniff Test: how big is your app? 
• Many apps also use “crash analytics” packages offered for free from Twitter and Facebook, which also report back to their respective makers on app usage. 
• Apple said the delay is to give time for developers to make changes necessary in their apps - perhaps some developers would be as shocked as users would be at how much data their apps are leaking back to other companies. 
• In its letter, Apple singled out Facebook as a company that “tries to collect as much data as possible” on its users
• Facebook has told advertisers they could see a “drop in revenue of 40%” when the privacy tools come online.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.