Computer hackers plundering Brazilian rain forests

As reported in the Wired blog post, Hackers plundering Brazilian rain forest, a hacking ring controlled by logging companies has been alleged to allow harvesters to unlawfully access government logging databases and issue extra 'transport permits' to remove resources (trees) from the Amazon.

This has been a challenge for Brazilian authorities, who have arrested 30 suspects and have another 200 people under investigation.

Environmental group Greenpeace estimates 1.7 million cubic meters of illegal timber has been harvested because of the hacks. The group says that's enough wood to fill 780 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Federal authorities are also suing timber companies to recoup an estimated $883 million in purloined resources, Greenpeace said.

These type of left field social and economic issues driven by technology innovations are likely to increasing challenge governments to be agile and responsive and build their own online capabilities.

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Paper on Web 2.0 and the Public Sector

Paul Johnston has posted in the Connected Republic a blog post, Web 2.0 and the Public Sector, discussing Cisco's draft paper on Government 2.0, Realizing the Potential of the Connected Republic (PDF) from the US Public Services Summit in December.

The paper provides many examples of practical uses of Web 2.0 tools and techniques by governments across the world and argues that, as government organisations are the most organised and rigidly hierarchically structured (and therefore the worst at innovation, less agile and have more difficulty dealing with sudden change), they have the most to benefit from Web 2.0 approaches.

Still in draft, Paul is welcoming comments before the final paper is released in early 2009.

It is a very interesting read.

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A wonderful time for public sector recruitment and big egovernment infrastructure projects

While speaking to a colleague earlier in the week about the rush on access to government support in some areas of Australia due to the current economic conditions, I realised that it is a very good time for the public sector to build capacity and skills.

The IT skills crunch has affected Australian government for some time, with the private sector able to be more flexible and agile in adapting job descriptions and remunerations to suit market needs. International pressures have not helped, with many of Australia's top people drawn overseas due to the challenges and financial opportunities.

Now that private organisations around the world are feeling the financial pinch, there is the opportunity for the public sector to reinvent itself as a stable and reliable employer, emphasising the value of stable jobs within a less stable global economy.

This would have the following benefits for the Australian public,

• Accelerate the development of egovernment services and infrastructure that would provide lasting support to the community.
  
• Beef up the government's capacity in service delivery at a time when access to government services are becoming more critical for the welfare of many Australian citizens and businesses.
  
• Keep skilled people productively employed within Australia, rather than potentially losing them over time to other countries as they recover from the crisis.
  
• Keep money flowing in the Australian (digital) economy - well designed large IT infrastructure projects could have economic flow-ons in similar ways to moderate sized physical infrastructure projects.
  

There are also direct benefits for the APS,

• Address the current skills shortage issues by draw from a larger pool of skilled people who have abruptly become available in the market.
  
• Assist the process of updating and improving the capacity of the public sector in the IT space, transferring skills that can be kept once projects ends and many of these skilled people transition back into the private sector (when the economic crisis ends).
  
• Supports the need for government agencies to transition to a new level of egovernment service delivery and better IT systems (many of which remain firmly rooted in the last century).
  
• Support the recommendation in the Gershon review to shift public sector IT workforces towards more permanent APS staff (less contractors) due to people seeking stability in an uncertain climate.
  

It does require government to move quickly to resource key government agencies to expand their capabilities. This kind of agility has been difficult for government in the past without clear political leadership.

Most of the above benefits for government recruitment stretch beyond egovernment to other aspects of public sector service provision. If we can draw in the skilled people looking for stability and ensure that government provides a positive employment experience, we can build lasting capacity across the public sector.

What do others think - should government be growing in a time of recession?

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How Australia ranks on broadband penetration, price and speed

I've just found the 2008 broadband rankings report (PDF) from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. The Foundation draws from OECD and other data to form a picture of how various countries are tracking in terms of broadband penetration, speed and cost.

Australia doesn't do too badly overall, ranking 12th out of 30 on the table, mainly because of our high broadband penetration rate.

However Australia had the 4th slowest average broadband access speed at 1.7Mbps. Spain (1.2Mbps), Mexico (1.1Mbps) and Greece (1.0Mbps) were the only listed countries with slower average speeds, whilst the leaders were significantly ahead, Japan (63.6Mbps) and South Korea (49.5Mbps) - the average broadband speed was 9.2Mbps, five times as fast as Australia's average.

If other countries did nothing to their networks while Australia introduced the proposed 12Mbps network, we'd reach 6th on the table. More likely, assuming this network takes 5 years to introduce, I'd anticipate that other nations would be improving their network speeds, leaving Australia in the bottom half of the list.

The cost comparison compared the minimum monthly cost per Mb in each country. This looked at connection charges NOT download limits, therefore does not represent Australia on the same playing field (most countries do not have Australia's download restrictions such as excess charges or speed capping, it's 'all you can download' for the same monthly price).

My take-away from it is that Australia requires some serious and fast work in restructuring both our internet pricing arrangements and network infrastructure improvements to adequately remain competitive in an increasingly digitally-driven economy.

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Australian first - Court documents served by Facebook

As reported in Friday's Sydney Morning Herald in the article, Australian court serves documents via Facebook,

Today in what appears to be a first in Australia and perhaps the world, Master Harper of the ACT Supreme Court ordered that a default judgement could be served on defendants by notification on Facebook.

Previously both email and SMS text messaging have been accepted as legitimate means for serving certain court papers.

However this appears to be a world first, lifting the status of Facebook in the eyes of the law.

It has some potentially interesting applications by government. For example where people are travelling or otherwise have no fixed address, but do keep in touch with friends via online social media, this is now a potential channel for sending at least some forms of official documentation.

Certain Australian agencies already use internet tools to track schemes and persons of interest - both for fraud and for criminal investigations, and in the future the platform may become more accepted, particularly as more people drop their landlines or in the case of people who are difficult to track down physically.

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