Cyber Bootcamp for Australian Government Ministers

Alastair MacGibbon, Special Adviser to the Australian Prime Minister on Cyber Security has said senior government executives and Ministers should be set to “Cyber Bootcamp”. This is one of the recommendations in "Review of the Events Surrounding the2016 eCensus". This is a report on the successful denial of service attack on the 2016 Australian Census website, in August 2016.

The government downplayed the significance of the incident by describing it as a "truck across the driveway", just preventing access but doing no other damage. However, continuing the analogy, the truck may be filled with armed terrorists, or a very large bomb. On Wednesday, Dan Tehan MP, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security outlined a scenario where a virus introduced to critical systems shuts down the electricity grid, causing widespread deaths and injury.

Summary of Recommendations

• Crisis Communications and Coordination ...

• Education: The Attorney-General’s Department should develop a “Cyber Bootcamp”

• Security Framework: The Australian Signals Directorate should strengthen the framework...

•  Embracing Adaptive Government...

• Cyber Security in a Digital First World

• The ABS should engage an independent security consultant ...

• The ABS should ensure future significant changes to personal information handling ...

• The ABS should adopt a privacy management plan ...

• The ABS should assess and enhance existing ABS privacy training for staff.

• The ABS should develop a specific strategy to remove the current state of vendor lock-in.

• Agencies should review their approach to cyber security incident response planning and coordination ...

• Agencies should ensure independent security assessments are conducted on critical ICT deliverables.

• Agencies should test security measures and monitoring systems for online government services ...

• Agencies should be conscious of updated interpretations of governing legislation ...

• The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has recommended the government develop an APS-wide Privacy Code in collaboration with the Office. ...

ABS Tries to Blame IBM for 2016 Census Problems

In its 123 page submission to the 2016 Census Senate Inquiry, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) seeks to blame IBM for the failure of the system on Census night. Similarly, in the case of "Maguire v Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (2000)", SOCOG sought to deflect responsibility for defects in its web site to the contractor, IBM. However, this was rejected and SOCOG, not the contractor, was found responsible. In that case SOCOG was a temporary organization set up just to run the Sydney Olympics, with limited experience. In contrast, the ABS has decades of experience in statistical collection using IT systems and cannot credibly transfer responsibility to IBM. I teach IT Ethics to university students and the 2016 Census will become a useful case study on professional responsibility.

• "On the night of 9 August 2016 (Census night) the online Census, hosted by IBM, was subject to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that was not unusual and was anticipated, which affected the Census application system. This was not due to load from legitimate Census submissions, which at the time of the attack were running in line with ABS projections and well within the design load for the system. Around the same time, an unusual spike in outbound traffic was observed in the monitoring systems. These two events led to the closure of the online Census submission to the Australian public until the afternoon of 11 August 2016. While this caused inconvenience, protecting the information of Australians was the ABS’s highest priority and Census information was never compromised.

The online Census system was hosted by IBM under contract to the ABS and the DDoS attack should not have been able to disrupt the system. Despite extensive planning and preparation by the ABS for the 2016 Census this risk was not adequately addressed by IBM and the ABS will be more comprehensive in its management of risk in the future. However, once the system had been affected, the ABS took the precaution of closing the online Census form to safeguard and to protect data already submitted, protect the system from further incidents, and minimise disruption on the Australian public by ensuring reliable service." (From Page 4).

"The online Census DDoS attack of 9 August 2016 was against an IBM system not an ABS one. See Section 9 for further details." (From Page 7)

Senate Inquiry into Attack on Census Website

The Senate Standing Committees on Economics are holding "An inquiry into the preparation, administration and management of the 2016 Census by the Australian Bureau of Statistics", including:

"d. the shutting down of the Census website on the evening of 9 August 2016, the factors leading to that shutdown and the reasons given, and the support provided by government agencies, including the Australian Signals Directorate;" From: Terms of Reference.

I suggest the Australian Computer Society (ACS) join with Internet Australia (the Australian Chapter of the Internet Society) on this and try to widen the discussion to cover Internet security more generally. ACS and IA need not agree on every aspect, buy could loosely coordinate, as was done for the Internet regulation inquiries of the 1990s, as  described by Chen (2000, p. 161).

Reference

Chen, P. J. (2000). Australia's online censorship regime: the Advocacy Coalition Framework and governance compared. Retrieved from
https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/38780/65881_00000240_01_AOCR.pdf?sequence=1#page=162

Australian Government Needs a Planned Response to Cyber Attack

The security of government information systems is the responsibility of government ministers, not IBM or the ABS. What should be of concern is not just that there was a successful denial of service attack on the Australian Census, but the apparent lack of a planned and practiced response from the relevant government ministers and their staff. Had this been a more serious attack, such as one on critical infrastructure threating lives, the poor performance by ministerial level of government could have been disastrous.

At the senior levels of government there need to be plans in place for who says what and when. These plans need to be tested in exercises, just as is done for natural disaster planning, which Australian state and local governments do well. Internet Australia (IA) members are discussing what form of submission to make to the likely Parliamentary inquiries into this matter. I suggest the Australian Computer Society (ACS) join with IA on this and try to widen the discussion to cover Internet security more generally. ACS and IA need not agree on every aspect, buy could loosely coordinate, as was done for the Internet regulation inquiries of the 1990s, as  described by Chen (2000, p. 161).

Reference

Chen, P. J. (2000). Australia's online censorship regime: the Advocacy Coalition Framework and governance compared. Retrieved from
https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/38780/65881_00000240_01_AOCR.pdf?sequence=1#page=162

Australian Population Census Computer System Problems

I had a call from ABC Radio this morning about the ABS announcing they had suffered denial of service attacks from overseas.  Perhaps the ABS staff need to go down to the foyer of their building and break the glass on the display case, with the punch card machine in it. I used a machine like that thirty years ago to write programs for the Census and it worked fine. ;-)

But seriously,  keep in mind this is not a safety critical system: no lives are endangered. People can fill it in tomorrow, or the day after, or get a paper form. But the minister needs to be asked if sufficient resources were given to the ABS and were they allowed to use their preferred method of data collection, which would be surveys, not a census.

At 9:50pm Census night I tried the ABS site at 10pm and still got:

"Thank you for participating in the Census. The system is very busy at the moment. Please wait for 15 minutes before trying again. Your patience and cooperation are appreciated. [code 9]"

The Census error message web page is 117 Kbytes, with 49 Kbytes of Javascript and 52 Kbytes of CSS, which seems a bit much just to display a few hundred characters of error message. But presumably this code is cached and reused throughout (in which case, it is not too large). The CSS uses Pure v0.5.0 . 

ps: My comments on the 2006 eCensus.

Looking to Defence for Broadband Future

The last session of "Converging on an NBN Future" was a general discussion. I commented that the NBN was conceived and is being built by experienced experts who can relied on to build a system which works. The unanswered question as I see it, is what the nation will do with the NBN. While areas such as education and health are considered likely uses, is there a well funded and planned process to make this happen?

One of the speakers responded to me that we should look to the Defence Department for possible future uses of broadband. This is ironic as when at the Department of Defence I looked to academia for ideas of how the Internet could be used and to formulate Defence and government policy. Now it was being suggested doing the opposite.

One participant pointed out that the Australian Bureau of Statistics released a new "Internet Activity, Australia Survey" at 11:30am today (covering June 2012). The ABS report an annual growth rate in Internet subscribers in Australia of 10% and 96% of Internet connections being broadband. The volume of data downloaded via mobile handsets is increasing at 32% a year.

The last comment for the day was from respected IT journalist John Hilvert, who suggested that when the school parents and citizens association routinely meets on-line, the NBN will have been a success.

IT Use and Innovation in Australian Business

The Australian Bureau of Statistics have released a Summary of IT Use and Innovation in Australian Business (ABS Cat. no. 8166.0, 26 June 2012). Businesses with broadminded Internet access is up 2% to 99.1%. However busienss which order online is at only 50.8% and which take online orders is a low 28%. Micro-business is lagging online with only 33.2% having a web presence.

CONTENTS

1. IT USE IN AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS
   1. About Business Use of Information Technology Statistics
   2. Business Use of Information Technology
2. INNOVATION IN AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS
   1. About Innovation in Australian Business Statistics
   2. Innovation in Australian Business - Summary
   3. Innovation in Australian Business - Detail
   4. Innovating Businesses
   5. Innovation Still in Development
   6. Abandoned Innovative Activity

Australian eCensus 2011

The 2011 Census forms arrived with a code for the eCensus. At www.census.gov.au, there was a link to both an accessible version designed for screen reader devices and a standard version.

The e-Census was introduced at the 2006 Census, when I provided a detailed analysis of the "eCensus: Australian Bureau of Statistics Web Based Population Census Form". A quick check of the eCensus web page for 2011, shows the XHTML 1.0 Transitional code has one validation error:

Line 31, Column 142: there is no attribute "autocomplete"

…lcomeForm" method="post" autocomplete="off" onsubmit="return openKiosk(this.ta…

It took 15 minutes to fill in the on-line form (which is reasonable), with no difficulties encountered.

One question was about use of the Internet:

Question 59 Can the internet be accessed at this dwelling?

• Include any internet service regardless of whether or not paid for by the household.
• If more than one type of connection in dwelling, select the most frequently used type.
• For more information, see the Census Guide or press the Information Button for this question.

No Internet connection
Yes, broadband connection (including ADSL, Cable, Wireless and Satellite connections)
Yes, dial-up connection (including analog modem and ISDN connections)
Other (including Internet access through mobile phones, etc)

An amazing amount of effort goes into designing even such a simple looking question. I attended the 2007 ABS ICT Reference Group meeting where this question was discussed.

Innovative Companies Invest More in ICT

A research paper "Business Innovation and the Use of Information and Communications Technology" by Jessica Todhunter and Ruel Abello at the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that innovative companies invest more ICT. But what the analysis can't show is if using ICT makes the company more innovative, or just that companies invest more to support their innovation.

The study uses data from the ABS Business Longitudinal Database (BLD) to examine the association between the intensity of use of information and communications technology (ICT) by businesses, and innovation. Firm level data for 6,442 businesses from the 2005–06 and 2006–07 waves of the BLD are used. An ‘ICT intensity index’ is constructed to represent the levels of sophistication in the business’ ICT usage. The association of this indicator with different types of innovation is modelled using multivariate regression. The types of innovation considered include product, process, organisational and marketing innovations.

The analysis finds a strong relationship between ICT intensity and innovative activity at the firm level. Businesses which use sophisticated types of ICT are significantly more likely to undertake innovation of any type. The more intense ICT users are likely to undertake more types of innovation, more novel innovations and are more likely to develop the innovations internally. The relationship between ICT and innovative activity holds when controlling for a range of other business characteristics, such as employment size and industry division.

From: "Business Innovation and the Use of Information and Communications Technology" by Jessica Todhunter and Ruel Abello at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 3 March 2011

Wireless Internet Popular in Australia

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a 21.7% increase in Mobile wireless Internet use from December 2009 to June 2010 (Internet Activity, Australia, Jun 2010). Note that the ABS has had some difficulties with what is the definition of fixed and mobile wireless and so the figures need to be treated with caution. It may be that this over reports use, where people get wireless Internet free with something they buy, or unreported it, where they have a data service bundled with their mobile phones. However, popularity of wireless raises questions as to the need for and viability of the fixed fibre optic National Broadband Network. My view is that the NBN fibre network is a good thing, but we will likely have widespread use of wireless as well. It is likely most people will have fibre to provide TV and their phone, as well have mobile wireless on their mobile phone. The fibre provides a higher capacity more reliable service. I was interviewed about this on ABC 666 Local Radio Canberra this morning. Other statistics:

• At the end of June 2010, there were 9.6 million active internet subscribers in Australia.
• The phasing out of dial-up internet connections continued with nearly 92% of internet connections now being non dial-up. Australians also continued to access increasingly faster download speeds, with 71% of access connections offering a download speed of 1.5Mbps or greater.
• Digital subscriber line (DSL) continued to be the major technology for connections, accounting for 44% of the total internet connections. However, this percentage share has decreased since December 2009 when DSL represented 47% of the total connections.
• Mobile wireless (excluding mobile handset connections) was the fastest growing technology in internet access, increasing to 3.5 million in June 2010. This represents a 21.7% increase from December 2009. ...

From: "Internet Activity, Australia, Jun 2010", 8153.0, ABS, 20 September 2010

Steampunk Interactive Performance

Last night I attended preview of the play "True Logic of the Future" by Boho at the Belconnen Arts Centre, in Canberra. This combined live performance, video and audience participation for an entertaining and thought provoking evening. The pay opens 21 August, during the Ultimo Science festival at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

The play is set in a post-apocalyptic near future, where climate change has overwhelmed democratic government and computer logic is used to make hard decisions as to who will live and die. The set looks like a Victorian era drawing room, apparently in reference to William Stanley Jevons, Victorian era economist and logician. The three actors, Cathy Petocz, Jack Lloyd and David Finnigan are dressed in Victorian era costume and they (and we the audience) are invited to work out what is going on. But this seems really to be an excuse for using a steam-punk aesthetic. The characters, while in Victorian era consume, use devices such as a 1880 style WiFi plate camera and a computer console in the style of pipe organ, which is inspired by Jevons' 'Logic Piano' paleo-computer.

The play seems prescient, with its themes of desperate political expedients to address climate change, given the the Australian prime minister was deposed suddenly a few weeks ago for failing to address climate change.

Performances were flawless, despite the difficulty of working in an interactive environment which tended to distract from the actors. The use of video, including real time images from a WiFi camera disguised as an old plate camera was clever. The use of video reminded me of Peter Greenaway's "Prospero's Books". The play also has echos of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia. That play also features issues of technology, mathematics and a fluid use of time. Perhaps the producer should consider a video game version of the work.

The location of the play made it more poignant, being a few hundred metres from some of the government institutions mentioned. Many of the audience seemed to be from government and were able to identify with the play (I overheard a discussion advocating the centralisation of Government IT in the foyer before the performance which might have been part of the script).

But the themes of authoritarian versus humanistic government in the face of a failure to address climate change, would seem to be likely to be just as relevant in NSW when the play opens during the Ultimo Science festival at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

ps: In the past I have found that with such plays, life starts to imitate art. In 1994 I attended Arcadia in Sydney. A few days later I was visiting Oxford and caught up in the architecture and academic environment described in the play.

In 1996 I attended Bertolt Brecht.'s "The Life of Galileo" at the Sydney Opera House. The set had a Apple Mac laptop on Galileo's desk, drawing parallels between censorship of Galileo's work and modern Internet censorship. Around the same time I appeared before Senate inquires into Internet censorship, where the IT profession was essentially assumed to be guilty until proven innocent.

Australian E-business up 52%

According to "Summary of IT Use and Innovation in Australian Business", released today by the ABS, Australian businesses income from orders placed via the Internet increased by 52% to $123B over the last financial year. Just over a quarter of businesses took orders via the Internet. Just under half (42%) of businesses had a web site, with most large businesses (95%) having one. Micro businesses are lagging with less than a third (31%) having a web site.

Canberra has highest Internet use

The ABS reports that the ACT continues to have the largest proportion of households with computers (88%) and Internet access (82%). The ABS seems to be courting controversy by reporting that "The majority of ACT households have taken steps to protect their children's personal safety while using the Internet at home...". This contradicts the position of the Minister for Communications that mandatory censorship of the Internet by the government is required to protect children.

ICT Statistics for the National Broadband Network

Greetings from the ICT Statistics Reference Group Meeting at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Canberra. Major federal ICT agencies and industry bodies are represented in the group (I am here on behalf of the ACS). Major items discussed were the rollout of the National Broadband Network in Tasmania (where I was last week) and the creation of the NBN Company. I talked about the Australian ICT Trade Update released yesterday. Another item was that the Queensland Government has released a "ICT for tomorrow's Queensland - Strategy" and Action Plan.

One issue which keeps coming up at these meetings is the lack of resources for the ABS to collect ICT statistics. One suggestion I have made is to ask the new NBN Company for funding. The NBN Company has a very close interest in the use of ICT in Australia and is well funded by the federal government. An extra ten million of dollars per year spent on statistics may save tens of billions of dollars on misdirected investment in broadband infrastructure.

One statistical detail which may become important is that the ABS will start recording the number of home fibre optic connections in Australia (currently there are only though to be about 400). ABS will look from the home point of view, as a result a fibre termination to cluster housing will not count as fibre to the home. This has very significant implications for the statistics and for pubic policy. As an example, there is a fibre node in the basement of my apartment building, with copper cable the last few tens of metres to the apartment. This would not be counted as fibre to the home by the ABS. In my view it should be counted as this is fibre to the premises and provides essentially the same service as if the fibre was terminated in my apartment. This will skew the statistics, and undercount the FTTP statistics. It is very much cheaper and easier to use copper for the last tens of metres, than fibre, so there will be a lot of this. It would be unfortunate if many Austrlaias missed out on better broadband because of a statistical definition.

Here is the agenda for the meeting, I will comment on other items as we go along:

ICT Reference Group Meeting

23 September 2009

Agenda

1. Welcome – 5 mins

2. Minutes from last meeting and action item status – 5 mins

3. ICT Strategic issues – current and emerging (for discussion by group members) – 50 mins

1. Updates in policy landscape and priorities since the last reference group meeting.

2. Emerging regulatory priorities and trends in technology.

3. Future directions for ICT statistics from a user perspective.

4. Other, as identified by members.

4. Updates on ABS business collections (for information and discussion) – 40 mins

1. ICT Industry Survey (ICTIS): Developments since the last reference group meeting.

2. Development of 2009–10 Business Use of Information Technology (BUIT) survey.

3. Changes to Internet Activities Survey (IAS)

4. Update on Farm Use of Information Technology (FUIT)

5. Data in respect of Government Use of IT [update by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO)] – 15 mins

6. Update on ABS collections relating to Non-business Use of IT (for information and discussion) – 15 mins

1. Census of Population and Housing: Developments in relation to 2011 ICT related questions – update from previous meeting – 5 mins

2. Developments in Household Use of Information Technology (HUIT) statistics – 10 mins

   1. Status of development for 2010–11 HUIT.

7. ICT related statistics produced by other organisations (for information) – 15 mins

1. Cyber Crime Survey by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) – update on status (presentation by AIC)

2. ICT compendium and ICT Remuneration Survey by the Australian Computer Society (presentation by ACS)

8. Analytical projects undertaken by ABS (for information) – 20 mins

9. International developments – 10 mins

1. Working Party on Indicators for the Information Society (WPIIS) meeting in Paris 23-24 April 2009.

2. OECD Project on Analysis and Classification of Internet activities – status on ABS contribution.

10. Recent developments: work underway, recent releases and upcoming releases (for information) – 10 mins

1. Work underway: Surveys and other work currently in development.

   1. BUIT 2009–10

   2. HUIT 2010–11

2. Recent releases (since March 2009):

   1. Internet Activity Survey, Australia, December 2008 (6 April 2009)

   2. Summary of IT Use and Innovation in Australian Business, 2007–08 (25 June 2009)

   3. Use of Information Technology on Farms, 2007–08 (17 August 2009)

   4. Business Use of Information Technology, 2007–08 (20 August 2009)

   5. Internet Activity Survey, Australia, June 2009 (14 September 2009)

   6. Selected Characteristics of Australian Business, 2007–08 (17 September 2009)

3. Upcoming releases:

   1. Research and Experimental Development, Businesses, Australia, 2007–08 (25 September 2009)

   2. Business Longitudinal Database, Confidentialised Unit Record File (October 2009)

   3. Household Use of Information Technology, 2008–09 (16 December 2009)

11. Other business and Conclusion

Learning to map census data online

ABS is running a free "ABS Training: CDATA Online seminar" 03/12/08 in Canberra (other dates in other locations). The 2006 CDATA Online seems reasonably easy to work and useful. You can create your own custom display of census data via the web for free.

Australian ICT Industry Statistics

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry survey results for 2006-07 on 7 October 2008. ABS found 300,000 people employed in ICT: 43% in design and service, 26% information media and telecommunications and 24% wholesale trade. The industry contribtes $44B to the economy. Due to government budget cuts there will be no 2008-09 survey.

Environmental Accounts Information Paper

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released a useful information paper: "What are Environmental Accounts?". This discusses applying an accounting approach to integrate environmental data with economic and social data. I don't agree with the ABS assertion that an accounting approach necessarily brings greater discipline to the organisation of data. The recent global financial crisis, brought about by companies not knowing what liabilities they have, suggests accounting has a disastrous lack of rigour. However, the ABS provides a useful overview of environmental measurement for social planning, plus a List of economic Accounting reports.

Environmental science has detailed measures to try to assess the uncertainty of the data they collect. These do not always work. At Griffith University I studied global environmental models, such as the Club of Rome study "Limits to Growth" (1972); these suggested the world as we know it should have ended decades ago. The models were wrong and the world survived.

The difficulty is not with data from nature which can be measured with instruments, but the assumptions about human behaviour in response to that data. This is the most difficult part with environmental accounts, but the most important. As the ABS points out, government policy is shifting to an integrated approach considering the economy, society and the environment together.

In my own recent work, commissioned by the Australian Department of Environment, on how to reduce ICT energy use, I have pointed out the need for better measures of the energy use of the ICT sector in Australia (and therefore its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions). However, knowing how much energy is used will not necessarily reduce climate change. The actions I propose depend on the behaviour of people. At one extreme it depends on convincing individuals to turn off their computers when they are not using them, and at the other of convincing the Australian Government to buy energy efficient computers for the public service and schools. The resulting change in energy use can be measured, but there are is no perfect way to predict the behaviour of a person, or a government.

Some examples the ABS provides:

1. Accounting for Nature : A Model for Building the National Environmental Accounts of Australia, from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists
2. National Water Accounts, from the The Bureau of Meteorology
3. Australia's National Greenhouse Accounts, from the Department of Climate Change)
4. Water Account, Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics

... Environmental-Economic Accounts:

• enable the relationships between the environment and the economy to be analysed and understood, including understanding environmental and economic dependencies and outcomes;
• present environmental data using a framework that is consistent with broader economic data, such as those compiled in accordance with the widely used economic accounting framework, the System of National Accounts;
• show the distribution of environmental resources across different parts of the economy, which supports more targeted policy development;
• follow internationally accepted guidelines and facilitate international comparisons; and
• provide a system into which monetary valuations of environmental assets and environmental-related flows can be incorporated with physical data, so that monetary implications of environmental actions can be considered...
  

From: "What are Environmental Accounts?", ABS, Information Paper

4655.0.55.001 , 19 September 2008

Innovation and Technology Statistics

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released "8101.0 - Innovation and Technology Update" 29/07/2008. This includes stats on ICT in Australia, R&D and "innovation" They also have an ICT Theme page.

1. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Statistics
2. Research & Experimental Development (R&D) Statistics
3. Innovation Statistics
4. Business Characteristics Statistics
5. Other

Government Statistics Cutbacks Threaten Broadband Future

Every few months I attend the Australian Bureau of Statistics ICT Reference Group for the Australian Computer Society. These are some notes from the 2 April 2008 meeting held at ABS House in Canberra (previous meeting was November 08, 2007 and others are available). Please note these are not official minutes. They may omit some confidential material and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations mentioned.

Agenda

1. Welcome

People introduced themselves. It was interesting that people from federal agencies were still not used to saying the new longer post-election names of the agencies. ;-)

The agenda was rearranged, moving item 4 and 8 after 2. I have retained that numbering.

2. Minutes from last meeting and action items status

No significant changes.

4. Changes in ABS work program in relation to ICT statistics

ABS has had about a 6% budget cut and has to make changes. They decided to drop whole items of work, rather than cut everything by an equal amount. Except the 2011 census will be run in the same way as the last one, saving on development work.

They will therefore run the Census much the same as the last one, without large changes. There was a 9% take up of the online eCensus (I expect it could reach 25% next time). The AIIA representative suggested AIIA and ACS could help promote it.

Also there will not be a “thematic” part to the census; everyone will get the same census form. There will still be a half page for Internet questions and the like. New “mesh block” output results will still be provided.

ABS will not run ICT industry survey 2008/08 (perhaps ACS could step in and help find some more money, or help do so some research?). There will be a reduction to the household and farm use surveys.

8. Presentation on Economic Significance and State of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Industry and Impact of the Mobile Phone on Work/Life Balance by Chris Althaus

Mobile statistics indicated revenue of $13B, employing 21,000 people. Mobile subscriptions are now at saturation point, with more mobile phones than people in Australia. Access Economics did some economic modeling of direct and spillover “Australian Mobile Telecommunications Industry: Economic Significance & State of the Industry” (July 2007).

Economy wide benefits are expected by a skilled workforce with mobile data. 3G is assumed to provide 20 minutes per week in productivity. By 2010 mobile data is expected to provide $1B more to GDP. 3G had a slow start, but is picking up (I suspect high costs for mobile data were holding things back).

Social research is looking at the impact of the mobile phone on work/life balance. M-Commerce, m-Education and m-Entertainment are major areas. ANU and others researched “Social Research - The Impact of the Mobile Phone on Work - Life Balance”. Surveys where mostly positive as to the impact of the mobile phone. One interesting outcome was the role of the mobile in micro-social management (travel with a family and see the way the phone is used to run a trip like a military operation). Males tended to emphasize work use of mobile, females social use.

Recycling is an issue, with phones replace every 12 to 18 months. The MobileMuster program aims to have old phones recycled. I suspect that the iPhone and Goole Mobile software equipped phones with large touch screens and good web access will disrupt the industry, creating a new category. In the short term this will result in more replacements and in the longer them might reduce replacement.

One issue raised in discussion that email on Blackberry type devices is a big driver as will be 3G in laptops. Convergence was also raised, as was social networking and its negative aspects. The role of 3G in providing broadband versus fiber to the node was discussed. SMS spam and scams were also raised. There was also an interesting discussion of the difference in the way mobile devices are used for payments in developing countries and developed ones. I saw this first hand in India.

3 ICT Strategic issues – current and emerging

• Changes in policy landscape and priorities since the change of government (Presentation by Dr Judith Winternitz, DBCDE)
  
• Emerging regulatory priorities (Presentation by Mr Joseph di Gregorio, ACMA)
• Future directions for ICT statistics from a user perspective Emerging trends in technology
• Other, as identified by members

5 Census of Population and Housing: Strategies for 2011 with regard to ICT related questions in view of changes to ABS work program.

The question asked last time was: “Can the Internet be accessed at this dwelling?”. The answers were: “no, dial-up, broadband, other”. The issue was how much this question could be changed. There is no budget to test new questions and so changes must be minimal. The obvious answer to add would be wireless and mobile phone, but it would be difficult to add these without testing.

It is ironic to think that some of the people filling in the census form may be doing so using a mobile phone, for whom the question about Internet access at “the dwelling” will not make a lot of sense.

Also there are political implications in the question. The Census will be around the time of the next election. The government made promises about broadband and the decision by the government to cut finding for ICT statistics may be seen as a way to avoid seeing if the commitment was met. As doctors and engineers get told: "If you can't measure it, you do not know if it is working".

For the Government to cut $22M from ABS to risk the Australian economy, as well as its own political future seems odd. This is a message which needs to get to the Treasurer. AIIA and ACS might make some representations on the ABS' behalf. This change, if it is to be made, has to be done in the next few weeks.

6. Future of Household Use of Information Technology survey

Plan to publish results around December 2008. Detailed data will be charged for. The next survey will be 2010. ABS wants to know what the industry wants to know.

Options for provision of ICT industry data following budget cancellation of 2008-09 ICTIS.

At this point government representatives discussed changed following the election. One of these was the increased emphasis on fiber broadband infrastructure by the new government and the “digital” economy being emphasized. The government has set a date for 2012/13 for digital TV switchover, freeing up spectrum for broadband wireless data.

One issue raised was the environmental issues with the changeover, as this is likely to accelerate the replacement of TVs (also digital TVs tend to use more power). But digital can;t really be blamed for this, as take-up of digital TVs is already up to 42%, due to the consumer's love of large flat screen TVs.

SMH reports OPEL has advised the stock exchange that the deal for them to provide broadband is off (I was interviewed by ABC TV News about this later in the day).

ACMA looked at the issue of voice (that is an ordinary phone service). Research published in “telecommunications today” shows that consumer see mobile and fixed phone services as complementary, not competing. The point was made that there is little regulation around Internet compared to phones.

Landlines are seen as critical services (this might be interpreted as reliable services). VoIP is not new, but still has issues for emergency services and enforcement agencies. One problem I had was that the discussion was that the role of mobile phones was not clear, between fixed traditional phones and Internet. In some ways mobile phones are like fixed phones and in other ways they are more like the Internet.

ACMA is not seeking to use regulatory powers to collect statistics, instead working with ABS. Given that ABS is having its funding cut and that statistics collection from ICT providers can be easily be automated, there is the opportunity to create standard automated collection formats for the industry.

The Innovation Department discussed the formation of innovation councils. There may be an ICT Innovation Council (AIIA and ACS might need to lobby for this). There is a review of the innovation system (I have suggested using GovDex for on-line consultation). This is likely to cover CRCs and government procurement.

ABS asked if a specific survey was needed for the ICT , or if this could be got from general collections. ABS is trying this out out on the pharmaceuticals industry first.

9 Recent developments, upcoming releases and work underway in ICT statistics (for information)

Work underway

• ICT Industry Survey 2006-07 (report)

• Integrated Business Characteristics Survey (IBCS) 2006-07 and 2007-08 (report)

• Farm Use of IT 07-08 (status report)

This was going to be cut back, but ABS have been able to work out how to do it another way. The details escaped me.

• OECD Information economy product classification : Current status (report)
  

• Recent releases (for information)

• Summary of Innovation and IT Use in Australian Business (19 November 2007)

• Patterns of Internet Access : Analytical work based on 2006 Census question on Internet access (29 November 2007)

• Business Use of IT 2005-06 (from Annual Business Characteristics Survey) (7 December 2007)

• Household Use of Information Technology 2006-07 (20 December 2007)

• Australia and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (31 March 2008)
  

• Upcoming releases (for information)

• Internet Activity Survey, December 2007 (24 April 2008)
  

10. Other Business and conclusion

One amusing part of the meeting was that the screen saver on the projection screen showed a sequence of landscapes, but in between a field of flowers and stone hinge was the federal cabinet at government house. The significance of this was not clear.

Meeting closed 2 April 2008. Next meeting is in the first half of August.

What will the Internet be in 2011?

Every few months I attend the Australian Bureau of Statistics ICT Reference Group for the Australian Computer Society. These are some notes from the 8 November 2007 meeting held at ABS House in Canberra (previous meeting was May 2007). Please note these are not official minutes and may omit some confidential material.

Agenda

1. Welcome: Members include IIB Queensland Government, ACMA, NICTA, AMTA, DCITA, ACCC, ABS, IDC, AIIA.

2. Minutes from last meeting and action items status: ABS put their paper online (but I am not sure where online they put it). ABS is also looking at capturing stats on 3G and wireless broadband.

The collection of Internet access stats will be moved from a March to a to June collection to align with the OECD statistics. This should avoid the fuss which happened with the stats last time.

3. ICT Strategic issues - current and emerging policy issues (for discussion) -45 mins

Policy related developments: Mobile technologies, Emerging trends, Information needs for states and territories ...

The first tricky issue to come up was if it is possible to find out from regional ISPs where their customers are. This is important for working out the penetration of Internet and broadband in regional areas. The ISPs say that this data is difficult to provide, as the location of the customer may not be the same as their billing address. This may seem an odd argument to make to a technologist as wired connections will be attached to a phone line in most cases and the location of the phones is known. But while the ABS can compel companies to provide information, they can't make it burdensome.

On 29 November 2007 ABS will release detailed Census report. This will include information on Internet and access cross referenced by regional, disabled and indigenous users. Everyone seemed happy with this. I guess the government will be happy as this is a week after the election. ;-)

This will be of use to the ACS as we are working on policy for expanding the USO from just access to basic telephone services and payphones, to cover broadband and mobile technology. Reg Coutts, ACS Telecommunications Board Chair, had article "Service obligation must broaden", The Australian, 6 November 2007. Also ACS would like to see some changes to the ICT employment categories to cover changes in the industry. ACS is working leading an international task force to set global standards for IT training.

Some issued others raised were: convergence between phones, TV and publishing industry; digital literacy; pervasive network; social networks; semantic web; facebook; IT industry skills; how are skills for non-IT specialists conveyed; security and safeguards; open source and licensing; Community Map Builder for presenting statistical data; competition in telecommunications; will telcos build infrastructure if the industry fragments; data requirements versus industry burden in statistics collection; future of voice; pact of 3G mobile on work practices; ICT for health services; ICT for business competition; visualisation; software as service; unmet demand for labor; broadband access for businesses and households; difference of opinion between DCITA and the Productivity Commission on ICT's effect on productivity; DCITA says ICT should not be considered a sector of the economy but an enabler so statistics are needed to measure ICT's effect on aspects of the economy; ICT skills for indigenous community; incidence, intensity and impact; climate change.

Couple of other points which occurred to me were the impact Google's mobile platform will have and that of Internet Appliances, such as the ASUS Eee PC subnotebook and Zonbu desktop thin client. These may start being used by individuals, as PCs were and then work their way into the workplace. This might be a grass roots way to have open source, consolidation, virtualisation and software as a service for business systems.

In terms of ICT skills as an enabler I was teaching public servants about electronic document management a few weeks ago The course is designed to be delivered in a "blended" mode with a combination of classroom, exercises and online. I expect this will be the standard mode for adult education within a couple of years.

ACS issued a report on climate change and ICT a few months ago and details are at the ACS Green ICT Group. The ACS Policy Statement for Green ICT is available. The October meeting of the ACS Green Group looked at buildings and the next on training for sustainable development on 21 November 2007.

In terms of regional development I did a study for the WA Government on IT development in Albany. That showed that good telecommunications and local education facilities helped with development.

4 National Data Network (NDN): update and future directions (for information and discussion)

Update on NDN and demonstration of Children and Youth Portal (presentation) - 15 minutes

Currently 11 nodes: 4 full and 7 light. Might have an ICT portal. ACS collects data on the ICT industry and so might contribute to the portal. Unfortunately the metadata about collections in the NDN are not accessible to search engines, which in my view, makes the system non-viable.

As an example of the advantages of publishing the metadata, recently I was looking for details of the Australian musical work "Quito" by Martin Wesley-Smith. A web search threw up a number of commercial sources, but also the National Library of Australia's "Music Australia" database. Now knowing of the that database, I could use its specialist search service. But had NLA not made the details of the particular musical work available to the search engine I would not have learned of the existence of the database. It would not be sufficient to advertise the existence of the database on the web, as I would not have found that with my search. Similarly, the NDN might as well not exist if what it has available is not made known via the web.

Another example of metadata publishing is that the ACS, along with Australian universities and research organizations, is making the details of research available via a standard metadata interface. The metadata is collected by the National Library of Australia, amongst others, and made available. The same technique may also be used to distribute government information.

Opportunities for data sharing using NDN ( presentation by ACMA ) - 15 minutes

ACMA is the communications regulator. They are now responding to the Banks red tape taskforce. ACMA is asked for data by researchers. ACMA publishes research results in its "Telecommunications Today" series. ACMA are participating in the NDN.

5. Census of Population and Housing: Directions for 2011 in relation to ICT related questions and collection strategy ...

ABS are now planning what should be in the 2011 Census. They want input from the ICT industry. The Census group will meet in May 2008 and would like input by 31 March 2008. There is a web page inviting public comment. There is a document "Census of Population and Housing: ABS Views on Content and Procedures, Australia 2011" available.

ABS will use "mesh blocks" as the unit of collection, which are not based on local government areas and will make collection more flexible. ABS will attempt to produce longitudinal data, while protecting individual privacy. Some questions will be customized for some respondents (called "thematic questions"). Some questions are already being tested. Questions about Internet will be included, but details changed as most households will have Internet access.

Some issues which came up were: should Internet spend be asked for and could the respondents answer the question. How many Internet connections a household has.

Some issues I can see: Will the household focus of the census still make sense in 2011? Should it be assumed that most all Census forms will be filled in online in 2011 and so more customized questions can be used. Questions such as how much a household spends on Internet access and how many connections they have may not make much sense by 2011. It could be assumed that just about every person will have continuous Internet access 24 hours a day by 2011 wherever they are.

6 Business Use of ICT statistics (for discussion) (Presentation by Jean Marc Annonier, IDC Australia) -15 mins

Details of IDC are at <http://www.idc.com.au>.

7 Recent developments, upcoming releases and work underway in ICT statistics (for information) - 25 mins

Work underway

• ICT Industry Survey 2006-07 (report)
• Integrated Business Characteristics Survey (IBCS) 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 (report)
• Recent review of IAS review (paper)
• Farm Use of IT 07-08 (report)
• OECD Information economy product classification : Current status (report)
• Review of Australia and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (report)

Recent releases (for information)

• Explorations of Innovation and Business Performance Using Linked Firm-Level Data (released 7 September 2007)

Upcoming releases (for information)

• Summary of Innovation and IT Use in Australian Business (19 November 2007)
• Patterns of Internet Access : Analytical work based on 2006 Census question on Internet access (29 November 2007)
• Business Use of IT 2005-06 (from Annual Business Characteristics Survey) (7 December 2007)
• Household Use of Information Technology 2006-07 (14 December 2007)
• Internet Activity Survey, December 2007 (April 2008)

Top ten search words on the ABS web site search tool included "Internet". ;-)

8. Other Business and conclusion .- 5 mins

Next meeting: first half of next year.