Kiwicon '08 Keynote speaker and VC Hacking.

The keynote speaker began discussing legislation currently underway regarding legalizing the ability for the police to "hack" into a system, currently this is restricted to requiring a warrant issued by a judge, however under the new legislation it'll be a "issuing officer" which as the speaker said,
sounds like an automated online form they fill out, then get emailed a warrant.

The discussion was very engaging, and discussed the issue of personal privacy an issue which is very close to my own heart,

The fact is we are 'sleepwalking into a pan-national totalitarian state'

and people aren't doing anything about it.

the discussion was wide ranging and discussed the topic of hacktivism, which is unlike many of the definitions on the web, hacking to defend personal freedoms, and electronically taking a stand against law makers and politically / financially motivated entities that want to limit our freedoms,

a great example cited was the Cointel project by the FBI where the FBI were performing illegal acts and it only came to light after the fbi offices were broken into by an organisation called "The citizens commission to investigate the FBI" the information around the project was leaked to the press and J. Edgar Hoover had to admit to the operation and shut it down.


Another interesting point of note was the keynote speaker was detained at customs recently and had his laptop removed from his sight for 45 minutes after they demanded his passphrase,

pursuant to this he developed a duress proxy, which boots a window partion, records the activities of law enforcement, and can alert a remote sight if possible / needed.

the reason being, you need to know what they are doing with your machine when you can't see them, the fact is it wouldn't be a first for law enforcement or other government organisations to plant evidence or undergo an illegal phising expedition.

the final part of the talk, which stirred much debate, the idea of direct-E-democracy, which has many pro's and con's and I'll likely discuss more at a later time, suffice to say, I pointed out that one risk we run with a direct - e-democracy is ending up with rick-astley as our national athem.

The next set of speakers were discussing the inherent vulnerabilities around the H323 protocol, and a large number of very popular video phones and conferencing equipment,

I won't discuss this much here due to the nature of the topic, but suffice to say, its amazing how much you can find out, and see throughout the tubes, _and_ how much damage could be caused!

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