"Hello, I'm John Howard, I've taken the unusual step of contactingyou..."

Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.

Was the investigation too limited in its brief?

Any opinions on this?


"The Prime Minister's pre-recorded messages were sent to thousands of
voters in marginal electorates with the greeting: 'Hello, I'm John
Howard. I've taken the unusual step of contacting you with this recorded
message'.

Mr Horton said the ACA investigation sought to find out if the Liberal
Party had unauthorised access to the Integrated Public Number Database
which is a national database of all operational phone numbers in
Australia - including private numbers.

He said the authority found that the private numbers used during in the
campaign had been sourced through a now-defunct database company Desktop
Marketing Systems and not the IPND numbers database".
(http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...nbv%5E,00.html)


"Implications of Telstra v Desktop Marketing

The decision clarifies that for databases to be protected by copyright
in Australia, a low level of originality and creativity is required. It
significantly enhances the rights of those who compile databases and
confirms that database users may need to obtain permission from the
owner of copyright in the database if they want to copy, adapt or
transmit a database".
(http://www.nswscl.org.au/journal/45/Stammer.html)


"...corporate affairs spokesperson for Telstra's Sensis, said that three
courts had found DtMS guilty of copyright infringement. 'Our intention
is to protect the hard work and hours that have been put into developing
[our] directories and also to protect the privacy of people listed in
the directory', White said.

Scibor-Kaminski and DtMS had appealed the decision several times in
various Australian courts, but to no avail, he said.

'The impact of this will be felt in the marketplace in about six months
time, because market researchers will no longer have access to
information. Law enforcement people will be paying Telstra $5.50 a
search, instead of $100 for a CD-ROM".
(http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=15696)


"Even though a database may be a compilation of facts available in the
public domain, it may, in appropriate circumstances, nevertheless still
be possible to prevent use or access to that database by resort to the
law of confidential information. There are a line of confidential
information cases which established that if information is
acquired by means of expenditure of time, effort and money then the
information should be protected against unfair exploitation
notwithstanding that the information is available in the public domain.

A duty of confidence was held to arise in relation to the format of
publicly known information in Interfirm Comparison (Aust) Pty Ltd v Law
Society of New South Wales16. In that case, information contained in a
questionnaire for the purpose of determining the responses of New South
Wales solicitors with respect to solicitors' practices was held to be
confidential notwithstanding that much of the information was in the
public domain. Bowen CJ held that the information was confidential:

'Having regard to the amount of skill, judgement and labour involved in
the preparation'

The protectable element was the 'particular expression and arrangement
of the material, which arrangement was not known'.

The usual rules in protecting confidential information should be applied
to databases of confidential information. The database should, itself,
clearly be marked as being confidential, appropriate confidentiality
agreements should be entered into with anyone who is given access to the
database and, if the database is electronic or web-based, technical
measures should be put into place to limit access only to those
authorised to do so"
(http://www.claytonutz.com/downloads/SharpeCond.pdf)

B J Foster <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au ...

> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various Privacy
> Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.

Nope, political partys are specifically exempted from those laws, fuckwit.
And there is no problem with the copyright act anyway, you silly little clown.

"B J Foster" <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au ...
> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various Privacy
> Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>
> Was the investigation too limited in its brief?
>
> Any opinions on this?


ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

DTMS did not have private numbers in it. It was compiled from the telstra
whitepages phone books which do not include private numbers.
How can they *honestly* say they got the private numbers from DTMS?

--
EnjoyDialup - You know you want to...
mail=valid required when replying
http://www.EnjoyDialup.info

* Owner of Curt Cerb's arse *








"B J Foster" <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au ...
> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various Privacy
> Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>
> Was the investigation too limited in its brief?
>
> Any opinions on this?
>
>
> "The Prime Minister's pre-recorded messages were sent to thousands of
> voters in marginal electorates with the greeting: 'Hello, I'm John Howard.
> I've taken the unusual step of contacting you with this recorded message'.
>
> Mr Horton said the ACA investigation sought to find out if the Liberal
> Party had unauthorised access to the Integrated Public Number Database
> which is a national database of all operational phone numbers in
> Australia - including private numbers.
>
> He said the authority found that the private numbers used during in the
> campaign had been sourced through a now-defunct database company Desktop
> Marketing Systems and not the IPND numbers database".
> (http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...nbv%5E,00.html)
>
>
> "Implications of Telstra v Desktop Marketing
>
> The decision clarifies that for databases to be protected by copyright in
> Australia, a low level of originality and creativity is required. It
> significantly enhances the rights of those who compile databases and
> confirms that database users may need to obtain permission from the owner
> of copyright in the database if they want to copy, adapt or transmit a
> database".
> (http://www.nswscl.org.au/journal/45/Stammer.html)
>
>
> "...corporate affairs spokesperson for Telstra's Sensis, said that three
> courts had found DtMS guilty of copyright infringement. 'Our intention is
> to protect the hard work and hours that have been put into developing
> [our] directories and also to protect the privacy of people listed in the
> directory', White said.
>
> Scibor-Kaminski and DtMS had appealed the decision several times in
> various Australian courts, but to no avail, he said.
>
> 'The impact of this will be felt in the marketplace in about six months
> time, because market researchers will no longer have access to
> information. Law enforcement people will be paying Telstra $5.50 a search,
> instead of $100 for a CD-ROM".
> (http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=15696)
>
>
> "Even though a database may be a compilation of facts available in the
> public domain, it may, in appropriate circumstances, nevertheless still be
> possible to prevent use or access to that database by resort to the law of
> confidential information. There are a line of confidential information
> cases which established that if information is
> acquired by means of expenditure of time, effort and money then the
> information should be protected against unfair exploitation
> notwithstanding that the information is available in the public domain.
>
> A duty of confidence was held to arise in relation to the format of
> publicly known information in Interfirm Comparison (Aust) Pty Ltd v Law
> Society of New South Wales16. In that case, information contained in a
> questionnaire for the purpose of determining the responses of New South
> Wales solicitors with respect to solicitors' practices was held to be
> confidential notwithstanding that much of the information was in the
> public domain. Bowen CJ held that the information was confidential:
>
> 'Having regard to the amount of skill, judgement and labour involved in
> the preparation'
>
> The protectable element was the 'particular expression and arrangement of
> the material, which arrangement was not known'.
>
> The usual rules in protecting confidential information should be applied
> to databases of confidential information. The database should, itself,
> clearly be marked as being confidential, appropriate confidentiality
> agreements should be entered into with anyone who is given access to the
> database and, if the database is electronic or web-based, technical
> measures should be put into place to limit access only to those authorised
> to do so"
> (http://www.claytonutz.com/downloads/SharpeCond.pdf)

Rod Speed wrote:
> B J Foster <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au ...
>
>
>>Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
>>Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various Privacy
>>Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>
>
> Nope, political partys are specifically exempted from those laws, fuckwit.
> And there is no problem with the copyright act anyway, you silly little clown.
>
>

The original post called for an opinion about whether any Acts had been
breached. Please notify your controller that you need some adjustment.

There remains the question of whether the acts have been breached.

If the information was not used for the same purpose that it was
collected & the consent of the 'spamees' was not obtained, then various
Privacy acts may have been breached.

In the case of copyright, the high court clearly ruled that the
copyright belongs to Telstra. While the Telecommunications act may not
have been willfully breached, how is this different to a hacker using
Telstra customer information stolen (hacked) from a Telstra server?

Is it not clear that the information cannot be used without Telstra's
consent? If there is no protection of IP, then what is the purpose of
the Copyright act? Is Telstra taking steps to harvest this use of IP (at
$5.50 per address)? And if not, has a precedent been set for other
parties to use Telstra's White Pages freely?

Anti-spamming legislation:
"Messages from government bodies, political parties, religious
organisations, charities and some messages from educational institutions
are not subject to the unsolicited message prohibition or unsubscribe
requirement, where the messages relate to goods or services provided by
those organisations. The requirement to include accurate sender
information still applies".

Whilst Anti-spamming laws may exclude political parties, there remains
the question of how spamees can unsubscribe themselves. If the "accurate
sender information" in this case was John Howard, then perhaps all of
those affected should contact John Howard to have themselves removed
from the list. Does anyone know how this can be done?

In article <424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, B J Foster
<bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>

I don't believe it was, certainly not against the Spam Act. The gov was
smart to only make it an offense for commercial messages, not
political.

B J Foster <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4241cff7$0$5599$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au ...
> Rod Speed wrote
>> B J Foster <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote

>>> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
>>> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various Privacy
>>> Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.

>> Nope, political partys are specifically exempted from those laws, fuckwit.
>> And there is no problem with the copyright act anyway, you silly little
>> clown.

> The original post called for an opinion about whether any Acts had been
> breached.

When the spam legislation specifically exempts
political partys, clearly there can be no breach, fuckwit.

> There remains the question of whether the acts have been breached.

Nope.

> If the information was not used for the same purpose that it was collected &
> the consent of the 'spamees' was not obtained, then various Privacy acts may
> have been breached.

Nope.

Reams of your mindless shit flushed where it belongs.

"Peter" <spamfromnewsgroups@chatomatic.net> wrote in message
news:240320050712198410%spamfromnewsgroups@chatoma tic.net...
> In article <424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, B J Foster
> <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
>> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
>> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>>
>
> I don't believe it was, certainly not against the Spam Act. The gov was
> smart to only make it an offense for commercial messages, not
> political.

This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers. Their
explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.

--
EnjoyDialup - You know you want to...
mail=valid required when replying
http://www.EnjoyDialup.info

* Owner of Curt Cerb's arse *

"EnjoyDialup" <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote in message
news:3aea4jF6ahsduU1@individual.net...
>
>
> "Peter" <spamfromnewsgroups@chatomatic.net> wrote in message
> news:240320050712198410%spamfromnewsgroups@chatoma tic.net...
>> In article <424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, B J Foster
>> <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
>>> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
>>> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>>>
>>
>> I don't believe it was, certainly not against the Spam Act. The gov was
>> smart to only make it an offense for commercial messages, not
>> political.

> This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers. Their
> explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.

Or maybe they never did get hold of any silent line numbers at all.

Bet that was just another labor lie.

"Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3aef9hF69lmo0U1@individual.net...
>
> "EnjoyDialup" <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote in message
> news:3aea4jF6ahsduU1@individual.net...
>>
>>
>> "Peter" <spamfromnewsgroups@chatomatic.net> wrote in message
>> news:240320050712198410%spamfromnewsgroups@chatoma tic.net...
>>> In article <424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, B J Foster
>>> <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching
>>>> the
>>>> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
>>>> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I don't believe it was, certainly not against the Spam Act. The gov was
>>> smart to only make it an offense for commercial messages, not
>>> political.
>
>> This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers. Their
>> explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.
>
> Or maybe they never did get hold of any silent line numbers at all.
>
> Bet that was just another labor lie.



They would have access to them via telstra, but not via DTMS which they
claimed to have gotten it from.

--
EnjoyDialup - You know you want to...
mail=valid required when replying
http://www.EnjoyDialup.info

* Owner of Curt'C's arse *

> Is it not clear that the information cannot be used without Telstra's
> consent? If there is no protection of IP, then what is the purpose of
> the Copyright act? Is Telstra taking steps to harvest this use of IP (at
> $5.50 per address)? And if not, has a precedent been set for other

The $5.50 per *enquiry* is the fee that Telstra charges Law Enforcement
areas for searches requested

In article <3aef9hF69lmo0U1@individual.net>, Rod Speed
<rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote:

> "EnjoyDialup" <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote in message
> news:3aea4jF6ahsduU1@individual.net...
> >
> >
> > "Peter" <spamfromnewsgroups@chatomatic.net> wrote in message
> > news:240320050712198410%spamfromnewsgroups@chatoma tic.net...
> >> In article <424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, B J Foster
> >> <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
> >>> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
> >>> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
> >>>
> >>
> >> I don't believe it was, certainly not against the Spam Act. The gov was
> >> smart to only make it an offense for commercial messages, not
> >> political.
>
> > This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers. Their
> > explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.
>
> Or maybe they never did get hold of any silent line numbers at all.
>
> Bet that was just another labor lie.
>
>
What a typical Nazi response. Short, abusive and off-the-point.

"Boy Blue" <not@me.mate> wrote in message
news:240320051449028177%not@me.mate...
> In article <3aef9hF69lmo0U1@individual.net>, Rod Speed
> <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> "EnjoyDialup" <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote in message
>> news:3aea4jF6ahsduU1@individual.net...
>> >
>> >
>> > "Peter" <spamfromnewsgroups@chatomatic.net> wrote in message
>> > news:240320050712198410%spamfromnewsgroups@chatoma tic.net...
>> >> In article <424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, B J Foster
>> >> <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching
>> >>> the
>> >>> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
>> >>> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> I don't believe it was, certainly not against the Spam Act. The gov
>> >> was
>> >> smart to only make it an offense for commercial messages, not
>> >> political.
>>
>> > This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers.
>> > Their
>> > explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.
>>
>> Or maybe they never did get hold of any silent line numbers at all.
>>
>> Bet that was just another labor lie.
>>
>>
> What a typical Nazi response. Short, abusive and off-the-point.

That is the definition of Rod!

--
EnjoyDialup - You know you want to...
mail=valid required when replying
http://www.EnjoyDialup.info

* Owner of Curt'C's arse *

B J Foster wrote:
> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.

[SNIP]

> (http://www.claytonutz.com/downloads/SharpeCond.pdf)

Who gives a *SHIT*, it is all political *BULLSHIT*.

What I reckon is funny is that my answering machine took John Howard's
call and I missed half of it cause he started talking as soon as the
machine picked up the call and he didn't wait until after the tone!

:)


--
The views I present are my own and NOT of any organisation I belong to.

73 de Simon, VK3XEM.
http://www.aca.gov.au/pls/radcom/cli...IENT_NO=157452
VoIP http://www.TALKonIP.com.au/

Rod Speed wrote:
> "EnjoyDialup" <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote in message
> news:3aea4jF6ahsduU1@individual.net...
>
....
>
>>This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers. Their
>>explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.
>
>
> Or maybe they never did get hold of any silent line numbers at all.
>
> Bet that was just another labor lie.
>
>

As it happens, the ACA has confirmed that silent numbers were used, that
*some* of the silent numbers were previously listed (i.e. some other
were not LOL), and that *all* of the silent numbers would be investigated.

However, the ACA also stated that there was "no breach of regulations
because the spam material related to a non-commercial company and there
was an exemption for political parties to spam voters".

Nice one - the "non-commercial" company involved is apparently owned by
Howard's son. Oops.

"Simon VK3XEM" <usenet@vk3xem.net> wrote in message
news:42426c42_3@news.melbourne.pipenetworks.com...
> B J Foster wrote:
> > Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
> > Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
> > Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>
> [SNIP]
>
> > (http://www.claytonutz.com/downloads/SharpeCond.pdf)
>
> Who gives a *SHIT*, it is all political *BULLSHIT*.
>
> What I reckon is funny is that my answering machine took John Howard's
> call and I missed half of it cause he started talking as soon as the
> machine picked up the call and he didn't wait until after the tone!
>
> :)
>
>
> --
> The views I present are my own and NOT of any organisation I belong to.
>
> 73 de Simon, VK3XEM.

Umm, I don't think John rang you personally. It just *may* have been a
recording.

Ken

Simon VK3XEM wrote:

> B J Foster wrote:
>
>> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching
>> the Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
>> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>
>
> [SNIP]
>
>> (http://www.claytonutz.com/downloads/SharpeCond.pdf)
>
>
> Who gives a *SHIT*, it is all political *BULLSHIT*.
>
> What I reckon is funny is that my answering machine took John Howard's
> call and I missed half of it cause he started talking as soon as the
> machine picked up the call and he didn't wait until after the tone!
>
> :)
>
>

This is known as 'B2B'.

Rod Speed is cutting edge

In article <3aea4jF6ahsduU1@individual.net>, EnjoyDialup
<EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote:

> This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers. Their
> explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.

Or the auto-dialer just used random numbers... you know 8374-4321
8374-4322 etc etc

"EnjoyDialup" <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote in message
news:3aele8F6curi5U1@individual.net...
> "Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:3aef9hF69lmo0U1@individual.net...
>>
>> "EnjoyDialup" <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote in message
>> news:3aea4jF6ahsduU1@individual.net...
>>>
>>>
>>> "Peter" <spamfromnewsgroups@chatomatic.net> wrote in message
>>> news:240320050712198410%spamfromnewsgroups@chatoma tic.net...
>>>> In article <424160bc$0$5593$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, B J Foster
>>>> <bjfoster@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Whilst the inquiry might have cleared the Liberal Party of breaching the
>>>>> Telecommunications Act, there remains the question of the various
>>>>> Privacy Acts, the Copyright Act and anti-spamming laws.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't believe it was, certainly not against the Spam Act. The gov was
>>>> smart to only make it an offense for commercial messages, not
>>>> political.
>>
>>> This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers. Their
>>> explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.
>>
>> Or maybe they never did get hold of any silent line numbers at all.
>>
>> Bet that was just another labor lie.

> They would have access to them via telstra,

You dont know that.

> but not via DTMS which they claimed to have gotten it from.

Or some stupid journo completely mangled the story and they did
in fact use the DTMS and didnt call any silent lines except those
that had been made silent AFTER they had been in the DTMS.

EnjoyDialup <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote in
message news:3ag5ceF6a6mqdU3@individual.net...
> Peter <spamfromnewsgroups@chatomatic.net> wrote
>> EnjoyDialup <EnjoyDialup@HyperOz.com> wrote

>>> This does not explain how they got hold of private phone numbers. Their
>>> explanation is a lie, so they must have used federal databases.

>> Or the auto-dialer just used random numbers... you know 8374-4321 8374-4322
>> etc etc

> This would be a very bad idea because it would hit business many times in a
> row if they have a rotary group. It would piss people off. It would also
> waste a lot of calls to fax machines. I believe doing such a thing is also
> in breach of the telecommunications act. ie. one of Austell rules.

You're wrong on that last, and Austel is long gone as well.