Liberals: Liars, Fools or both?

Adam Turner of SMH wrote a definitive piece on the Turnbull/Fletcher/Abbott Policy Fiasco. He raises most questions that need to be answered. Angus Kidman writes in Lifehacker as well.

What the non-technical commentators aren't saying is the implications of having, on every single device, a remotely controlled and non-user-accessible piece of software in the system, not an application:

• These have a name, they're "backdoors". They are a very, very bad idea. The most awful security hole.
• This is completely opaque to users. The software can be made do anything, and users will not know, cannot know.
• Who's going to be controlling what you see? What you send? And monitoring what you do?
• You won't know and cannot know. This isn't simply invasion of Privacy, it has the potential to be complete on-line surveillance of the Australian population.
• An extreme view? Not after Snowden and PRISM. What's possible become Reality, very quickly indeed.
• Forcing all Internet connections in Australia to go under Abbott Rule is a Really Bad Idea.
• All Software has bugs, even from the NSA.

This isn't just bad policy, it is completely insane and bizarre, its a guaranteed technical & security disaster. We know from the exploit of the Google NSA/PRISM backdoors for Gmail, that if the Government can get in, so can others.

Here's a roundup of tweets I found interesting, insightful or amusing. There are many deep questions raised. Questions that need clear, straight answers before the Election.

Recent:

@Th2shay: Abbott wouldn't have a clue but @TurnbullMalcolm has no excuse
@Nanso44 Absolutely not poor wording!This was a slip showing that we have no reason to trust what they say


Tweets from Ric Werkhoven.

https://twitter.com/rwerkh/status/375749891328192512 for first.

•  it clearly was not poor wording. Someone should get that admission from Abbott. He lied.
•  how can someone insert comms policy into LNP policy like that? And it gets support till confirmed wrong?
• who has power to get policy through? What else could get in?
• That fits my theories about why the NBN policy is what it is.
• Not that could meant the opposite. This is weirder than spin I think???
• Yes @turnbullmalcolm exactly how many LNP policies do you think are BS?

This is particularly worrying. This really is Big Brother wanting Total Control of the Internet.

Once you have a filter/firewall installed on ALL your appliances & computers, one that YOU don't control, how will you ever know what it's doing ("Trust us, we're the Government", if its turned on and what "extra" functionality it's been given.

This is a very dangerous, very slippery slope, especially in light of how it was attempted to be snuck through.

• it's more than that. It's for mobile networks as well.

Other tweets

• Coalition filtering swindle? Abbott and Turnbull play us for fools [Link to SMH article above]
• Hmm, Ill thought out policy on the run that's hastily reversed a few hours later? Sounds like business as usual

No, not at all. It's about process and cover-ups, spin and denial in "Never our policy", no room for manoeuvre for Turnbull.

• The LNP are now running paid ads on Twitter trying to shift focus from their epic filter backflip to Labor's stuff-ups.

• Tbull on-air defending "not our policy, never has been" And yet opposing it at the same time.
• Turnbull, "Please Explain" the contradiction and inconsistency.

• "Nothing to see here"

• you know not to let a bad policy get in the way of a good story.

Last night

• Client side filters are a dime a dozen and don't need legislation. As usual, doesn't pass the stink test
• then why would it be a policy? Plenty of client-side filters already available. Market not working?

• he's all over social media now disavowing the filter We'll see but doesn't make sense to roll this out now
• It's a Comms policy, which is Turnbull's area. "switched on as default" was mistakenly written twice?

Process? Abbott read & authorised 'last night'. where was Turnbull in all this? He's provably NOT in charge of Internet and Communications policy. That he so easily and willingly complies with any policy put in front of him speaks to the character of the man and also that he whatever he thinks, he is very unimportant in the hierarchy of the Liberals.

• I'm not sure what bothers me more: that they may be crazy or are actually incompetent. Hopefully they're not both. :(

• Coalition #NBN is a sham and all misinformation. 

• What the Libs haven't told us is the real worry. We'll find out after their 'reviews/audits'.

• Yes it has to make you wonder what else do they have planned for us. They intend silencing any critic.

• honesty and trust. Except don’t be honest or truthful. How horrendous.

• I’m stunned. I’ve never seen any party sneak something like that in

early tweets

• You could from Conroy's too. At least his was done in the backend rather than at the consumers
• What's worse is that we already know a 12 yr old can beat client-side filtering. LNP #internetfilter worse than useless
•  at least you can opt out of this one!
• Comment: really? That is always very hard to do technically.
• Lucky for me I have a Windows Phone 7. No-one writes apps for that so I should be safe :)
• Wow. I never thought it would be possible to prefer Conroy's Internet filter over something, but there you go

Other worthy comments and questions

• Malcolm a man of mirrors and a smoky hazes.
• That famous Liberal Party unity. I mean they backflip, retract and obfuscate as one! 
• Turnbull defended an Internet filter on radio today (bit.ly/mallies) then lied to Australia about it 
• So the LNP internet filter was non core policy? Why isn't there like a list, a doc of all of their core, non core policies??
•  One has to ask - what other policies will the LNP & @TurnbullMalcolm change 4 hrs after publication? 
• LNP Internet Filter Policy wins the 2013 Federal Election Mal Meninga Award. 
• You've had 3 years to get your shit together LNP you pack of f'ing amateurs
• Mr Abbott only read the first page and approved it.
• Comment: speculation?
• "No opposition has ever gone to an election with a more carefully, comprehensively and thoroughly prepared set of policies."  Filter?
• The first cockup of a Coalition government was such a cockup that they couldn't even get into government before cocking it up
• The only error with the Internet Filter Policy was some dope released it BEFORE the election. What about their IR Policy?
• Mr Abbott read the internet filter policy as Stop the Boats not Stop the Bytes.
• Liar @TurnbullMalcolm has tried throwing LNP filtering policy down the memory hole. But the Internet doesn't forget! 
• LNP want to buy back all the modems out there in an attempt to control foreign bytes coming to our shores.
• I wonder if the policy of buying up the Indonesian fishing fleet was also "poorly worded."
• But LNP invented the internet so why wouldn't they control it with a filter? 
•  Look, if only they'd put a 3-star general in charge of the internet this stuff-up would not have happened.
• You don't make a fool of @TurnbullMalcolm it's more a case of self saucing pudding
• Mr Abbott's Internet Filter is designed to 'Stop the Sex Appeal' 

Collected Retweets from Geeksrulz.

https://twitter.com/geeksrulz/status/375600242390872064

Abbott's 5 pillar economy:

1. Stop BOTES

2. Stop GAYZ

3. Stop INTERNETZ

4. Stop PRON

5. Stop DREAMING OF A BETTER FUTURE

• .@TurnbullMalcolm - not your policy? You released it - you own it. You can't be trusted and nor can Abbott
• Tony Abbott:  "Look, trust me, I read that policy document and thought it said something completely different".  he admits it. 
• So Abbott saw the policy before it went online. Interesting! 
• Tony "I'm not tech-head" Abbott: "I thought it was a PC-based software." In other words,  #GetAMac
• The best internet filters are the ones people don't know about. LNP nearly got away with it
• Today the Libs announced an internet filter. No consultation. Hoping no one notices.  A vote for Abbott is a vote for filter & #fraudband
• Is this the competence we've been waiting for?
• So who authored this policy if it wasn't the Communications Spokesman @TurnbullMalcolm? 
• Liberal Party in last minute dash to take the "Dumb party organisation award" from the Wikileaks Party
• With sinuous ease, @TurnbullMalcolm is now backing an internet filter, an idea he furiously opposed just last year.
• Malcolm Turnbull on Labor's internet filter, 2012: "This was always a bad idea. It was bad for freedom, it was bad for freedom of  speech,"
• .@TurnbullMalcolm this is just insulting to voters, releasing policies just days before an election that you haven't even read properly.
•  Coalition announces internet filter ... and immediately backs down
• This mob was supposedly ready to govern in 2010, 2011, 2012 and can't even agree on a simple policy position on internet filters?? 
• One policy. One elevated degree of scrutiny. One furious backflip.
• There. Wasn't that hard, was it?
• "This is very much about protecting children against inappropriate content" - Liberal MP Paul Fletcher defends the, er, "policy"?
• Mr Turnbull and Mr Fletcher have been sent to their rooms by Mr Abbott. Baddies vs Baddies. Adult Alternative Govt
• Shortest lived policy ever? What 3 PM to 6PM? The LNP Mal Meninga Internet Filter.
• Thank f**k mr flip flop changes his mind as soon as his ideas are unpopular 
• Comment: Abbott won't be doing this, not when he's in power

https://twitter.com/geeksrulz/status/375578896185323520

Today we have:

1 Sweaty Joe

2 Perplex Andrew

3 Confuse Malcolm

4 Long Lost Paul

• Rumour is that Paul Fletcher will replace Turnbull after Abbott gets absolute power.
• .@TurnbullMalcolm who's actually running this net protection policy - you or @paulwfletcher?
• So on the same day Turnbull defends a filter which didn't exist and it appears in a costings doc. Nothing to see here peoples. Badly worded.
• This is a complete debacle. @paulwfletcher explains in detail an opt-out filter policy which the Coailtion apparently strongly opposes!
• If the Libs put in an internet filter and don't tell anyone, does it really exist?
• Why would Mr Turnbull know so much about an internet filter & defend it when it never existed?
• So the internet filter is enabled by default which means a majority of non techo people will be censored.
• A Rhodes Scholar cannot tell a LNP Policy is #NotBadlyWorded until a non Rhodes Scholar points it out.
• Hear that? That’s Malcolm Turnbull running 100 miles an hour away from Liberal Party policy...
• @TurnbullMalcolm Why would you need to make sense of a policy that you have developed?
• It was released by mistake. RT @AlboMP: Labor's release on Coalition last minute hidden Internet filter plan 
• Three years in the making RT @latikambourke: OL Tony Abbott - badly worded sentence or two in the policy document that went out.
• The internet filer policy was embargoed until after the election. Who leaked it??  
•  @LiberalAus don't even know what their own policies are. 
• The Coalition have removed a policy already. It was a mistake. An ENFORCED filter in phones & handhelds WHAT.? 
• Mr Turnbull is Shadow for Censorhip, Internet Filter and Mind Control.
• So why did lib backbenchers confirm it to two journos.
•  A filter policy, replete with all the media trimmings, suddenly becomes a poorly worded error? Pinocchiosis
• It appears that @TurnbullMalcolm is not in control of the comms portfolio. Ready for the reshuffle & cancelling of the #NBN?