Posts like this make me wish there was a "+1: Troll" option

Correct. Also, Power Plants, distribution grid etc are designated as "critical infrastructure", and they typically are given the benefit of government threat analysis and advice (on a "cost recovery" basis, so the government makes or loses no money in performing them). The scope of this advice extends to cyber threats (which are usually along the lines of "although you may not have heard of them, there are things called Industry Standards for IT Security. We suggest you begin looking at them")

I agree. The scope of government intervention in the cyber world should not overstep its responsibilities.

Aussie government departments already provide cyber threat advisory to Australian business, and it's all out in the open.

-DSD (Aussie version of the NSA) provides cyber protection and advice to Australian government, and makes a lot of it's advice available for business to use

-The Attorney Generals Dept provides cyber security advice to Australian businesses and individuals

-Aus CERT does much of the same

The simple fact is most businesses have no idea about cyber security. The government tries to educate them, as do IT security industry such as SANS.

The government forcing cyber security down businesses throats would be the equivalent of using infantry to defend banks cash vaults. It's not their job, nor in a free democracy should it be

Change "Follower" to "Macolyte" and you're onto a winner

I would gladly sell my soul to the MS Borganism if it meant I could be a Mech pilot

guest@xkcd:/$ finger

Mmmmmm...

They couldn't name it the McKraken, they'd be sued by Phil

If everyone in Australia had a Root (Chinese or otherwise) there would be no need for a Web of Porn

While it is technically true that the Australian Federal Government is spending the money, in this particular circumstance, money for laptops for children was given to the various State and Territory governments to decide exactly how they were going to spend it.

The retarded "unhackable" claim, and the decision on which OS and brand of computer to give to children in NSW was made entirely by the NSW government.

The federal government make plenty of stupid statements and policy decisions, but this is one they're not guilty of

I thought implementing ITIL just involved renaming the Help Desk to the Service Desk, then carrying on business as usual?

What's potable, preciouss?

They probably assume that like VisualStudio, competing IDE's take over an hour to install and just can't be bothered

VS is a great product, but god damn does it (and the complementary MSDN library) take a long time to install

It's a shame that a relatively interesting idea, has to be marketed as an ANTI-TERROR product for it to get any attention.
I can imagine this being useful for all sorts of problems related to drinking supply water - accidental contamination due to agricultural products, algal blooms etc

It's not surprising an article by Charles Stross reminds you of work by Vernor Vinge.

Charlie Stross's novels explore some of the same topics as Vinge, particularly Accelerando, which is an awesomely headfucking look at the Singularity. He's also released it as a creative commons free ebook, so there's no reason not to check it out

As another person who has done both at the same time, I also think this is the way to go. When I graduated from my degree, I went straight into work. It's great to be taking home money, but I found I missed the feeling of constant learning you can only get in academia (while you can and should learn on the job, I feel it's learning of a different nature). After 6 months of work, I enrolled myself to do a Masters in night classes.

Working fulltime and studying part time is hard. It requires time management, prioritisation and most of all, commitment. It's tough when your friends are all going camping for the long weekend while you're at home studying. It's tough when you've got an assignment due at university and a project due at work and you're expected to work late.

The upside of all this is that even more impressive than having a Masters on your resume is being able to show that you can complete a Masters while working. This shows employers you're motivated to continually better yourself, which can be cast in a very positive light in job interviews