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RobotMonster writes:
"The Guardian reports that a vast database containing the full names, nationalities, location, arrival date, and boat arrival information for a third of all asylum seekers held in Australia -- almost 10,000 adults and children -- had been inadvertently released by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in one of the most serious privacy breaches in Australia's history.
The disclosure of the database is a major embarrassment for the federal government, which has adopted a policy of extreme secrecy on asylum-seeker issues. As the department is likely to have breached Australia's privacy laws, it will be interesting to see what the repercussions are for the people who should be held responsible."
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Australia's Asylum-Seeker Database Leaked
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Friday February 21 2014, @04:29PM
I sort of like these breaches, it shows the necessity for encryption and security in a way that non-techies will respond to. You can see how Net Neutrality didn't becomes as big of a thing until Netflix slowed down...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by visaris on Friday February 21 2014, @04:48PM
I have similar issues when trying to motivate people (friends, family, etc.) to use encryption, sane passwords, etc. They couldn't care less what someone actually working in the computer industry with a graduate degree in computer science says, but if one of the talking heads on the news mentions a major hack/breach, they are all over it. These breaches and their increasing frequency do help the "common folk" become motivated to deal with the problem.
(Score: 0) by ragequit on Friday February 21 2014, @05:07PM
T some point though it will reach saturation and it will no longer be news.
The above views are fabricated for your reading pleasure.
(Score: 2) by tlezer on Friday February 21 2014, @04:55PM
Getting their attention is one thing, but there also has to be easy to use tools that they can quickly adopt and make part of their daily habit.
(Score: 1) by muthauzem on Friday February 21 2014, @06:28PM
Totally agree with you, but I can't feel hopeful about it changing someday for the common user.
In the end, the problem is that there's always a compromise between security and convenience.
While you only need one breach of security to have a major problem, it's easy to minimize the risk in your head since they are not really that frequent. It's not like you have your credit card stolen every 1h, day, week or even a year.
On the other hand, the steps you take to be 'sufficiently' secured (since you'll never be 100%) will probably be a minor inconvenience multiple times a day. Even typing a password can be a hassle for most people.
But about the main topic, we are not even dealing with "common users". You'd expect there were professionals around it. That's what is scary. But usually it's the same old story... probably the management responsible for the database don't really grasp the real importance of security to care or is just too incompetent.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Friday February 21 2014, @10:39PM
I'm in the final stages of rolling out a two factor authentication system at work. This is on the recommendation of our auditors and insurance co in direct response to a databreach in the fall.
Even the minor breach, actually got the higher-ups scared enough that security has become somewhat of a hot topic around the organization.
Even so, today as I was assisting a user with enrolling their account and token they lamented, "All of this because someone let their password out, I'm so annoyed." To which I responded, "If it wasn't someone, it would have been someone else eventually. This stops password leaks from ever being an issue."
Again, people are just hostile to anything tech people say that might be seen as an inconvenience. Never mind that the directive came from the top. Never mind that you, user, have access to *MY* person information with your account. Go ahead and tell me it's dumb -- thanks.
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