From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 22:54:27 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: No Subject
Message-ID: <199710151440.QAA03381@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Brief Background: In the last two months Australia (at this time under
a so called conservative Liberal Government) has re-affirmed its
anti-market controlled economy approach to economics with the
establishment of an IT bureaucracy, forcing ISP's to 'join' the TIO
and fund its operations, establishing the framework for a possible
cencorship regime on the internet, proposed legislation for key
escrow wrt VPN's and pursuing its favoured entrail reading approach to
economics by yet again believing it can 'pick winners' in the market
and allocate resources more efficiently than the market can; an
approach any socialist or totalitarian would be proud to support.

There is very little organised effort to oppose these measures. I
expect that people elsewhere will soon be able to look to Australia as
a testing ground for all the worst case scenarios long discussed on
cypherpunks.

Now the State has announced it's intention to forcefully mandate
authentication on the internet by imposing yet another taxpayer funded
bureaucracy and to hell with the market solutions already provided at
no cost to citizens. Shame on you Australia.

(Are politicians genetically selected on their ability to make
precisely the wrong decision in any given circumstance? Actually wrt
authentication there is no problem to solve. Doing nothing was the
best thing to do. Of course what this is really about is limiting
entry to markets, corruption and fraud on the public.)

http://www.theage.com.au/daily/971015/news/news7.html
Push to tie up loose ends on Internet

                               By GERVASE GREENE, 

                               Canberra 

Online commerce may exceed $6 billion by 2001, but it will be of
little use if customers and businesses cannot identify each other on
the Net.

Federal Cabinet yesterday approved steps to create a national system
for online authentication.

The Government will establish a body to oversee all authentication
systems.  The Communications Minister, Senator Richard Alston, said
this would significantly boost electronic commerce.

"With predictions that electronic commerce in Australia will increase
more than four-fold to $6.3 billion by 2001, the Government is well
aware that development of trust and confidence by businesses and
consumers in the reliability and security of online transactions will
be critical to the development of the information economy," he said.

A group of industry and government experts will report by March next
year on possible functions and powers of the watchdog. This will
include determining the technical standards required before an
identification system obtains certification. Several corporations have
marketed safety systems to exploit concern about the safety of online
transactions.

Sophisticated encryption will also be necessary before certification
is granted.

Civil liberty groups have called for anonymous transactions to be
possible, while law enforcement bodies have sought access to records
and transactions that would amount to an effective exemption from
privacy obligations.