Monthly Archives: July 2015

Anti-vaccination political party loses Domain Name.

In recent weeks a group of anti-vaccination campaigners have attempted to start their own political party called the Involuntary Medication Objectors Party whose goal is to undermine public health initiatives. 

Recent so called No Jab, No Play, No Pay laws discriminating against parents who choose not to vaccinate their children have far reaching effects for the basic freedoms that we have enjoyed.
We object to the our elected representatives making and supporting laws that use financial coercion to compel struggling, loving, caring parents to vaccinate their children with questionable medication.
The injustice of the recent No Jab, No Pay law has motivated us to form a political party that will aggressively agitate for rescission of this undemocratic law. -Involuntary Medication Objectors Party

This party is a response to the Abbot Government “No Jab, No Pay” laws which closed a loophole that people have been using to claim benefits they aren’t entitled to. Under this new law if parents want to claim a payment that has an immunisation criteria they must ensure that their children are vaccinated before they can receive the handout.

The party did have a website setup at IMOP.com.au until auDA the government organisation that administers the .au namespace received the following complaint.

The domain imop.com.au is registered to Misty Mountain Health and Institute Ltd, ABN 61097939672, so the domain name is clearly not (as required) an exact match, abbreviation or acronym of the registrant’s names:
* Better Life Productions
* Misty Mountain Health Retreat, or
* Misty Mountain Aboriginal Healing Place.

Given it is being used to host a political party’s web site, I fail to see how it’s being used for domain monetisation, or otherwise closely and substantially connected to the registrant under the rules for that use in the guidelines. -Complainant

The registry is now reporting status: pendingDelete (Client requested policy delete)

As we have seen in the past Anti-vaccination campaigners have a psychotic determination to undermine public health. I have no doubt they will return after this setback, and we will be waiting when they do. Every victory against the Anti-vaccination movement is a victory for public health, and we are winning this fight.

Opposition to Password Managers is Opposition to Security.

These days password managers are becoming popular security tools for end users to manage their passwords. The most popular solutions available to consumers are Lastpass, Dashlane, KeePass, 1Password and RoboForm. These applications enable their users to create unique-strong passwords for all their online accounts and store them in an encrypted database to keep them safe.

I personally have more than 3,200 credentials stored in multiple encrypted databases. The databases I manage include everything from Electronic copies of my passports, access for this blog, DNS Servers, Email accounts, service providers, application credentials, domain registrars, Encryption/Decryption keys, private x.509 keys, remote access to alarm and CCTV systems and more.

I have worked in IT since 2003, even with only part time contract work the amount to credentials that I have needed to store is phenomenal and if I didn’t clean out the database could be significantly larger than it currently is.

Password managers have become an essential way of life for me. There simply is no alternative when you need to manage so many systems/services, and those credentials need to be kept secure. Of the 3,200+ credentials in storage at least 200-300 of them are for personal use such as, Facebook, Youtube, eBay and anything else I’ve created an account for over 10+ years.

Password Management software is perhaps our best hope for getting users out of the habit of picking weak passwords or reusing the same passwords on multiple services. So it is frustrating to discover that in 2015 some companies are deliberate preventing their users from using password managers.

As if educating users not to write passwords down or reuse passwords in multiple places is not already a challenge. The fact that British Gas has gone out of its way to prevent their customers from using a Password Manager to keep unique passwords safe really shows how out of touch with the modern world they are. Perhaps British Gas would prefer their users to resort to Post-It notes on the monitor?

Former Queensland Police Officer calls for murder of medical workers.

Chris Savage is a prominent anti-vaccination campaigner and former sergeant in the Queensland Police Force prior to being thrown out for reasons Qld Police have not disclosed. I will however speculate that they probably didn’t want someone who thinks it’s ok to randomly shoot people at your own leisure.

Of course this is not the first time Anti-vaccination campaigner have praised murder as a legitimate tactic. Back in Febuary United States based anti-vaxxers openly praised the murder of medical personnel.

In September of last year a leading anti-vaccination campaign tried to convince a woman to kill her own husband via deliberate dissemination of false medical advise.

Way back in 2011 calls to “String the Bastards Up” where made by anti-vaxxers advocating the lynching of medical personnel. Then there is the unforgettable Frankie Vazquez who issues both bomb threats, death threats and more.

So while we are used to anti-vaxxers engaging in threatening and criminal activity it is not often that we have Former Police Offices engaged in such activities. Chris Savage actively promotes himself as a former police sergeant to garner credibility within anti-vax circles.

I will be interested to see what Queensland Police have to say about this. They kicked him out, but he still uses their brand/reputation to promote himself.