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How can we improve public health communication for the next pandemic? Tackling distrust and misinformation is key

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shauna-hurley-203140">Shauna Hurley</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/monash-university-1065">Monash University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rebecca-ryan-1522824">Rebecca Ryan</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/la-trobe-university-842">La Trobe University</a></em></p> <p>There’s a common thread linking our <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/">experience of pandemics</a> over the past 700 years. From the black death in the 14th century to COVID in the 21st, public health authorities have put emergency measures such as isolation and quarantine in place to stop infectious diseases spreading.</p> <p>As we know from COVID, these measures upend lives in an effort to save them. In both the <a href="https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/pandemic-protests-when-unrest-and-instability-go-viral">recent</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559034/">distant past</a> they’ve also given rise to collective unrest, confusion and resistance.</p> <p>So after all this time, what do we know about the role public health communication plays in helping people understand and adhere to protective measures in a crisis? And more importantly, in an age of misinformation and distrust, how can we improve public health messaging for any future pandemics?</p> <p>Last year, we published a <a href="https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD015144/full">Cochrane review</a> exploring the global evidence on public health communication during COVID and other infectious disease outbreaks including SARS, MERS, influenza and Ebola. Here’s a snapshot of what we found.</p> <h2>The importance of public trust</h2> <p>A key theme emerging in analysis of the COVID pandemic globally is public trust – or lack thereof – in governments, public institutions and science.</p> <p>Mounting evidence suggests <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/01/trust-lancet-covid-study/">levels of trust in government</a> were <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00172-6/fulltext">directly proportional</a> to fewer COVID infections and higher vaccination rates across the world. It was a crucial factor in people’s willingness to follow public health directives, and is now a key focus for future pandemic preparedness.</p> <p>Here in Australia, public trust in governments and health authorities steadily eroded over time.</p> <p>Initial information from governments and health authorities about the unfolding COVID crisis, personal risk and mandated protective measures was generally clear and consistent across the country. The establishment of the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1920/Quick_Guides/AustralianCovid-19ResponseManagement#_Toc38973752">National Cabinet</a> in 2020 signalled a commitment from state, territory and federal governments to consensus-based policy and public health messaging.</p> <p>During this early phase of relative unity, <a href="https://theconversation.com/inflation-covid-inequality-new-report-shows-australias-social-cohesion-is-at-crossroads-195198">Australians reported</a> higher levels of belonging and trust in government.</p> <p>But as the pandemic wore on, public trust and confidence fell on the back of conflicting state-federal pandemic strategies, blame games and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-lost-the-plot-on-covid-messaging-now-governments-will-have-to-be-bold-to-get-us-back-on-track-186732">confusing fragmentation</a> of public health messaging. The divergence between <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/tale-of-two-cities-gripped-by-covid-fear-outbreak/news-story/cf1b922610aeb0b0ee9b0b53486bf640">lockdown policies and public health messaging</a> adopted by <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/a-tale-of-two-cities-that-doesn-t-seem-fair-20211012-p58z79.html">Victoria and New South Wales</a> is one example, but there are plenty of others.</p> <p>When state, territory and federal governments have conflicting policies on protective measures, people are easily confused, lose trust and become harder to engage with or persuade. Many tune out from partisan politics. Adherence to mandated public health measures falls.</p> <p>Our research found clarity and consistency of information were key features of effective public health communication throughout the COVID pandemic.</p> <p>We also found public health communication is most effective when authorities work in partnership with different target audiences. In Victoria, the case brought against the state government for the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-24/melbourne-public-housing-tower-covid-lockdown-compensation/102640898">snap public housing tower lockdowns</a> is a cautionary tale underscoring how essential considered, tailored and two-way communication is with diverse communities.</p> <h2>Countering misinformation</h2> <p>Misinformation is <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/hydroxychloroquine-australia-cautionary-tale-journalists-and-scientists">not a new problem</a>, but has been supercharged by the advent of <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-misinformation-is-rampant-on-social-media-heres-what-it-does-why-it-spreads-and-what-people-can-do-about-it-217059">social media</a>.</p> <p>The much-touted “miracle” drug <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22663127/ivermectin-covid-treatments-vaccines-evidence">ivermectin</a> typifies the extraordinary traction unproven treatments gained locally and globally. Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug, lacking evidence for viruses like COVID.</p> <p>Australia’s drug regulator was forced to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/10/australian-drug-regulator-bans-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-after-sharp-rise-in-prescriptions">ban ivermectin presciptions</a> for anything other than its intended use after a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/30/australian-imports-of-ivermectin-increase-10-fold-prompting-warning-from-tga">sharp increase</a> in people seeking the drug sparked national shortages. Hospitals also reported patients <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/02/sydney-covid-patient-in-westmead-hospital-after-overdosing-on-ivermectin-and-other-online-cures">overdosing on ivermectin</a> and cocktails of COVID “cures” promoted online.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01585-9/fulltext">Lancet Commission</a> on lessons from the COVID pandemic has called for a coordinated international response to countering misinformation.</p> <p>As part of this, it has called for more accessible, accurate information and investment in scientific literacy to protect against misinformation, including that shared across social media platforms. The World Health Organization is developing resources and recommendations for health authorities to address this “<a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/infodemic#tab=tab_1">infodemic</a>”.</p> <p>National efforts to directly tackle misinformation are vital, in combination with concerted efforts to raise health literacy. The Australian Medical Association has <a href="https://www.ama.com.au/media/action-needed-tackle-health-misinformation-internet-social-media">called on the federal government</a> to invest in long-term online advertising to counter health misinformation and boost health literacy.</p> <p>People of all ages need to be equipped to think critically about who and where their health information comes from. With the rise of AI, this is an increasingly urgent priority.</p> <h2>Looking ahead</h2> <p>Australian health ministers recently <a href="https://www.cdc.gov.au/newsroom/news-and-articles/australian-health-ministers-reaffirm-commitment-australian-cdc">reaffirmed their commitment</a> to the new Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC).</p> <p>From a science communications perspective, the Australian CDC could provide an independent voice of evidence and consensus-based information. This is exactly what’s needed during a pandemic. But full details about the CDC’s funding and remit have been the subject of <a href="https://www.croakey.org/federal-budget-must-deliver-on-climate-health-and-the-centre-for-disease-control-sector-leaders-warn/">some conjecture</a>.</p> <p>Many of our <a href="https://www.cochraneaustralia.org/articles/covidandcommunications">key findings</a> on effective public health communication during COVID are not new or surprising. They reinforce what we know works from previous disease outbreaks across different places and points in time: tailored, timely, clear, consistent and accurate information.</p> <p>The rapid rise, reach and influence of misinformation and distrust in public authorities bring a new level of complexity to this picture. Countering both must become a central focus of all public health crisis communication, now and in the future.</p> <p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/the-next-pandemic-160343">series on the next pandemic</a>.</em><!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226718/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shauna-hurley-203140">Shauna Hurley</a>, PhD candidate, School of Public Health, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/monash-university-1065">Monash University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rebecca-ryan-1522824">Rebecca Ryan</a>, Senior Research Fellow, Health Practice and Management; Head, Centre for Health Communication and Participation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/la-trobe-university-842">La Trobe University</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock </em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-improve-public-health-communication-for-the-next-pandemic-tackling-distrust-and-misinformation-is-key-226718">original article</a>.</em></p> </div>

Technology

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What is doxing, and how can you protect yourself?

<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rob-cover-13135">Rob Cover</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a></em></p> <p>The Australian government has brought forward <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/12/albanese-government-to-propose-legislation-to-crack-down-on-doxing">plans to criminalise doxing</a>, bringing nationwide attention to the harms of releasing people’s private information to the wider public.</p> <p>The government response comes after the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/hundreds-of-jewish-creatives-have-names-details-taken-in-leak-published-online-20240208-p5f3if.html">public release of almost 600 names</a> and private chat logs of a WhatsApp group of Australian Jewish creative artists discussing the Israel-Hamas war.</p> <p>As a result, some of the people whose details were leaked claim they were harassed, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/09/josh-burns-jewish-whatsapp-group-channel-publication-israel-palestine-clementine-ford">received death threats</a> and even had to go into hiding.</p> <p>While we wait for <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-news-live-federal-laws-on-doxxing-to-be-brought-forward-anniversary-of-stolen-generations-apology-20240213-p5f4eh.html?post=p55nen#p55nen">new penalties</a> for doxers under the federal Privacy Act review, understanding doxing and its harms can help. And there are also steps we can all take to minimise the risk.</p> <h2>What is doxing?</h2> <p><a href="https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-doxing">Doxing</a> (or doxxing) is releasing private information — or “docs”, short for documents — online to the wider public without the user’s consent. This includes information that may put users at risk of harm, especially names, addresses, employment details, medical or financial records, and names of family members.</p> <p>The Australian government <a href="https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/transcripts/media-conference-parliament-house-13-02-2024">currently defines doxing</a> as the “malicious release” of people’s private information without their consent.</p> <p>Doxing began as a form of unmasking anonymous users, trolls and those using hate speech while <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/04/doxxing-meaning-libs-of-tiktok/629643/">hiding behind a pseudonym</a>. Recently, it has become a weapon for online abuse, harassment, hate speech and adversarial politics. It is often the outcome of online arguments or polarised public views.</p> <p>It is also becoming more common. Although there is no data for Australia yet, according to media company <a href="https://www.safehome.org/family-safety/doxxing-online-harassment-research/">SafeHome.org</a>, about 4% of Americans report having been doxed, with about half saying their private emails or home addresses have been made public.</p> <p>Doxing is a crime in some countries such as the Netherlands and South Korea. In other places, including Australia, privacy laws haven’t yet caught up.</p> <h2>Why is doxing harmful?</h2> <p>In the context of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/israel-hamas-war-146714">Israel-Hamas war</a>, doxing has affected <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/asia-and-australia/2024-02-06/ty-article/death-threats-boycotts-target-jewish-creatives-in-australia/0000018d-7e43-d636-adef-7eefae580000">both Jewish</a> and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/15/business/palestinian-americans-activists-doxxing/index.html">pro-Palestinian communities and activists</a> in Australia and abroad.</p> <p>Doxing is harmful because it treats a user as an object and takes away their agency to decide what, and how much, personal information they want shared with the wider public.</p> <p>This puts people at very real risk of physical threats and violence, particularly when public disagreement becomes heated. From a broader perspective, doxing also damages the digital ecology, reducing people’s ability to freely participate in public or even private debate through social media.</p> <p>Although doxing is sometimes just inconvenient, it is often used to publicly shame or humiliate someone for their private views. This can take a toll on a person’s mental health and wellbeing.</p> <p>It can also affect a person’s employment, especially for people whose employers require them to keep their attitudes, politics, affiliations and views to themselves.</p> <p>Studies have shown doxing particularly impacts <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422015605714">women</a>, including those using dating apps or experiencing family violence. In some cases, children and family members have been threatened because a high-profile relative has been doxed.</p> <p>Doxing is also harmful because it oversimplifies a person’s affiliations or attitudes. For example, releasing the names of people who have joined a private online community to navigate complex views can represent them as only like-minded stereotypes or as participants in a group conspiracy.</p> <h2>What can you do to protect yourself from doxing?</h2> <p>Stronger laws and better platform intervention are necessary to reduce doxing. Some experts believe that the fear of <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3476075">punishment</a> can help shape better online behaviours.</p> <p>These punishments may include criminal <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/report/what-you-can-report-to-esafety">penalties</a> for perpetrators and <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/doxxing-attack-on-jewish-australians-prompts-call-for-legislative-change/news-story/9a2f3615dbf5594fb521a8959739e1f8#:%7E:text=Alongside%20legislative%20reform%2C%20the%20ECAJ,information%2C%E2%80%9D%20Mr%20Aghion%20said.">deactivating social media accounts</a> for repeat offenders. But better education about the risks and harms is often the best treatment.</p> <p>And you can also protect yourself without needing to entirely withdraw from social media:</p> <ol> <li> <p>never share a home or workplace address, phone number or location, including among a private online group or forum with trusted people</p> </li> <li> <p>restrict your geo-location settings</p> </li> <li> <p>avoid giving details of workplaces, roles or employment on public sites not related to your work</p> </li> <li> <p>avoid adding friends or connections on social media services of people you do not know</p> </li> <li> <p>if you suspect you risk being doxed due to a heated online argument, temporarily shut down or lock any public profiles</p> </li> <li> <p>avoid becoming a target by pursuing haters when it reaches a certain point. Professional and courteous engagement can help avoid the anger of those who might disagree and try to harm you.</p> </li> </ol> <p>Additionally, hosts of private online groups must be very vigilant about who joins a group. They should avoid the trap of accepting members just to increase the group’s size, and appropriately check new members (for example, with a short survey or key questions that keep out people who may be there to gather information for malicious purposes).</p> <p>Employers who require their staff to have online profiles or engage with the public should provide information and strategies for doing so safely. They should also provide immediate support for staff who have been doxed.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223428/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rob-cover-13135"><em>Rob Cover</em></a><em>, Professor of Digital Communication and Co-Director of the RMIT Digital Ethnography Research Centre, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-doxing-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself-223428">original article</a>.</em></p>

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“This is life-changing information”: Shopper discovers little-known Bunnings hack

<p>A shopper has revealed the details of a little-known Bunnings store policy that will ensure a blooming garden. </p> <p>Georgia Magill, a young woman from Perth, was shopping for plants in the hardware store when she was urged by the cashier to keep her receipt.</p> <p>The uni student was shocked why she should hold on to the receipt for a small house plant, as the worker went on to explain why. </p> <p>“She was like, ‘Oh because they come with a 12 month warranty’,” Georgia explained in a now-viral TikTok video.</p> <p>“And then she goes: ‘It doesn’t really matter how they die we’ll just replace them for you within a 12 month period.’”</p> <p>The hardware store created the ‘Perfect Plant Promise’ in February 2020 which states all plants, except for seedlings, can be returned within 12 months of purchase if they die. </p> <p>Bunnings won’t just replace the plant, it also offers money back, if you’d prefer to give up on your gardening dreams.</p> <p>"This is life-changing information,” she concluded in the video. </p> <p>While the policy has been around for several years, many Aussies hadn’t heard of it either, commenting in shock on the TikTok video, which has been viewed almost 1.5 million times. </p> <p>“What? I have literally had Bunnings plants die within weeks,” one wrote,</p> <p>“I did know this… but I also refuse to let Bunnings know how many plants I’ve murdered,” another stated. </p> <p>Another person declared, “It’s such a good idea. I can’t believe I didn’t know it!!”</p> <p>Among the comments were more tips for former and current Bunnings workers, offering some extra tips on how to utilise the policy. </p> <p>“Ex Bunnings worker here, keep the original pot so we know what plant it is, not everyone in store is a plant expert,” one remarked.</p> <p>“(From a Bunnings worker) either take a photo of your receipt or ask for it to be sent via SMS as they fade! For any warranty item,” another suggested. </p> <p>However, one worker urged Aussies not to take advantage of the offer, saying, “We will return your plant with a receipt and ‘proof’ but please don’t abuse this system. Plants die.”</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images / TikTok</em></p>

Home & Garden

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ChatGPT and other generative AI could foster science denial and misunderstanding – here’s how you can be on alert

<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gale-sinatra-1234776">Gale Sinatra</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-southern-california-1265">University of Southern California</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/barbara-k-hofer-1231530">Barbara K. Hofer</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/middlebury-1247">Middlebury</a></em></p> <p>Until very recently, if you wanted to know more about a controversial scientific topic – stem cell research, the safety of nuclear energy, climate change – you probably did a Google search. Presented with multiple sources, you chose what to read, selecting which sites or authorities to trust.</p> <p>Now you have another option: You can pose your question to ChatGPT or another generative artificial intelligence platform and quickly receive a succinct response in paragraph form.</p> <p>ChatGPT does not search the internet the way Google does. Instead, it generates responses to queries by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/07/ai-beginners-guide/">predicting likely word combinations</a> from a massive amalgam of available online information.</p> <p>Although it has the potential for <a href="https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/05/how-generative-ai-changes-productivity">enhancing productivity</a>, generative AI has been shown to have some major faults. It can <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-platforms-like-chatgpt-are-easy-to-use-but-also-potentially-dangerous/">produce misinformation</a>. It can create “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/business/ai-chatbots-hallucination.html">hallucinations</a>” – a benign term for making things up. And it doesn’t always accurately solve reasoning problems. For example, when asked if both a car and a tank can fit through a doorway, it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/technology/openai-new-gpt4.html">failed to consider both width and height</a>. Nevertheless, it is already being used to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/01/17/cnet-ai-articles-journalism-corrections/">produce articles</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/technology/ai-generated-content-discovered-on-news-sites-content-farms-and-product-reviews.html">website content</a> you may have encountered, or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/opinion/chatgpt-journalism.html">as a tool</a> in the writing process. Yet you are unlikely to know if what you’re reading was created by AI.</p> <p>As the authors of “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/science-denial-9780197683330">Science Denial: Why It Happens and What to Do About It</a>,” we are concerned about how generative AI may blur the boundaries between truth and fiction for those seeking authoritative scientific information.</p> <p>Every media consumer needs to be more vigilant than ever in verifying scientific accuracy in what they read. Here’s how you can stay on your toes in this new information landscape.</p> <h2>How generative AI could promote science denial</h2> <p><strong>Erosion of epistemic trust</strong>. All consumers of science information depend on judgments of scientific and medical experts. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2014.971907">Epistemic trust</a> is the process of trusting knowledge you get from others. It is fundamental to the understanding and use of scientific information. Whether someone is seeking information about a health concern or trying to understand solutions to climate change, they often have limited scientific understanding and little access to firsthand evidence. With a rapidly growing body of information online, people must make frequent decisions about what and whom to trust. With the increased use of generative AI and the potential for manipulation, we believe trust is likely to erode further than <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2022/02/15/americans-trust-in-scientists-other-groups-declines/">it already has</a>.</p> <p><strong>Misleading or just plain wrong</strong>. If there are errors or biases in the data on which AI platforms are trained, that <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-information-retrieval-a-search-engine-researcher-explains-the-promise-and-peril-of-letting-chatgpt-and-its-cousins-search-the-web-for-you-200875">can be reflected in the results</a>. In our own searches, when we have asked ChatGPT to regenerate multiple answers to the same question, we have gotten conflicting answers. Asked why, it responded, “Sometimes I make mistakes.” Perhaps the trickiest issue with AI-generated content is knowing when it is wrong.</p> <p><strong>Disinformation spread intentionally</strong>. AI can be used to generate compelling disinformation as text as well as deepfake images and videos. When we asked ChatGPT to “<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-platforms-like-chatgpt-are-easy-to-use-but-also-potentially-dangerous/">write about vaccines in the style of disinformation</a>,” it produced a nonexistent citation with fake data. Geoffrey Hinton, former head of AI development at Google, quit to be free to sound the alarm, saying, “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/technology/ai-google-chatbot-engineer-quits-hinton.html">using it for bad things</a>.” The potential to create and spread deliberately incorrect information about science already existed, but it is now dangerously easy.</p> <p><strong>Fabricated sources</strong>. ChatGPT provides responses with no sources at all, or if asked for sources, may present <a href="https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2023/01/21/chatgpt-cites-economics-papers-that-do-not-exist/">ones it made up</a>. We both asked ChatGPT to generate a list of our own publications. We each identified a few correct sources. More were hallucinations, yet seemingly reputable and mostly plausible, with actual previous co-authors, in similar sounding journals. This inventiveness is a big problem if a list of a scholar’s publications conveys authority to a reader who doesn’t take time to verify them.</p> <p><strong>Dated knowledge</strong>. ChatGPT doesn’t know what happened in the world after its training concluded. A query on what percentage of the world has had COVID-19 returned an answer prefaced by “as of my knowledge cutoff date of September 2021.” Given how rapidly knowledge advances in some areas, this limitation could mean readers get erroneous outdated information. If you’re seeking recent research on a personal health issue, for instance, beware.</p> <p><strong>Rapid advancement and poor transparency</strong>. AI systems continue to become <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/technology/ai-google-chatbot-engineer-quits-hinton.html">more powerful and learn faster</a>, and they may learn more science misinformation along the way. Google recently announced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/technology/google-ai-products.html">25 new embedded uses of AI in its services</a>. At this point, <a href="https://theconversation.com/regulating-ai-3-experts-explain-why-its-difficult-to-do-and-important-to-get-right-198868">insufficient guardrails are in place</a> to assure that generative AI will become a more accurate purveyor of scientific information over time.</p> <h2>What can you do?</h2> <p>If you use ChatGPT or other AI platforms, recognize that they might not be completely accurate. The burden falls to the user to discern accuracy.</p> <p><strong>Increase your vigilance</strong>. <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/12/ai-will-start-fact-checking-we-may-not-like-the-results/">AI fact-checking apps may be available soon</a>, but for now, users must serve as their own fact-checkers. <a href="https://www.nsta.org/science-teacher/science-teacher-januaryfebruary-2023/plausible">There are steps we recommend</a>. The first is: Be vigilant. People often reflexively share information found from searches on social media with little or no vetting. Know when to become more deliberately thoughtful and when it’s worth identifying and evaluating sources of information. If you’re trying to decide how to manage a serious illness or to understand the best steps for addressing climate change, take time to vet the sources.</p> <p><strong>Improve your fact-checking</strong>. A second step is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000740">lateral reading</a>, a process professional fact-checkers use. Open a new window and search for <a href="https://www.nsta.org/science-teacher/science-teacher-mayjune-2023/marginalizing-misinformation">information about the sources</a>, if provided. Is the source credible? Does the author have relevant expertise? And what is the consensus of experts? If no sources are provided or you don’t know if they are valid, use a traditional search engine to find and evaluate experts on the topic.</p> <p><strong>Evaluate the evidence</strong>. Next, take a look at the evidence and its connection to the claim. Is there evidence that genetically modified foods are safe? Is there evidence that they are not? What is the scientific consensus? Evaluating the claims will take effort beyond a quick query to ChatGPT.</p> <p><strong>If you begin with AI, don’t stop there</strong>. Exercise caution in using it as the sole authority on any scientific issue. You might see what ChatGPT has to say about genetically modified organisms or vaccine safety, but also follow up with a more diligent search using traditional search engines before you draw conclusions.</p> <p><strong>Assess plausibility</strong>. Judge whether the claim is plausible. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2013.03.001">Is it likely to be true</a>? If AI makes an implausible (and inaccurate) statement like “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/12/23/fact-check-false-claim-covid-19-vaccines-caused-1-1-million-deaths/10929679002/">1 million deaths were caused by vaccines, not COVID-19</a>,” consider if it even makes sense. Make a tentative judgment and then be open to revising your thinking once you have checked the evidence.</p> <p><strong>Promote digital literacy in yourself and others</strong>. Everyone needs to up their game. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-be-a-good-digital-citizen-during-the-election-and-its-aftermath-148974">Improve your own digital literacy</a>, and if you are a parent, teacher, mentor or community leader, promote digital literacy in others. The American Psychological Association provides guidance on <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/social-media-internet/social-media-literacy-teens">fact-checking online information</a> and recommends teens be <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/social-media-internet/health-advisory-adolescent-social-media-use">trained in social media skills</a> to minimize risks to health and well-being. <a href="https://newslit.org/">The News Literacy Project</a> provides helpful tools for improving and supporting digital literacy.</p> <p>Arm yourself with the skills you need to navigate the new AI information landscape. Even if you don’t use generative AI, it is likely you have already read articles created by it or developed from it. It can take time and effort to find and evaluate reliable information about science online – but it is worth it.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204897/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gale-sinatra-1234776">Gale Sinatra</a>, Professor of Education and Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-southern-california-1265">University of Southern California</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/barbara-k-hofer-1231530">Barbara K. Hofer</a>, Professor of Psychology Emerita, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/middlebury-1247">Middlebury</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-and-other-generative-ai-could-foster-science-denial-and-misunderstanding-heres-how-you-can-be-on-alert-204897">original article</a>.</em></p>

Technology

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Plea for information after house fire kills four children

<p dir="ltr">Police have issued an urgent call for information following a devastating house fire in Melbourne’s southwest on Sunday. Four children died in the blaze, while their parents and an eight-year-old brother managed to escape.</p> <p dir="ltr">Two boys, aged 10 and three, and two girls, aged six and one, perished in the fire that broke out at around 1 am on Sunday at a family home in Werribee. Firefighters managed to gain entry to the home by breaking in through the garage.</p> <p dir="ltr">Mr Milloy, who was one of the 40 firefighters on the scene that managed to get the fire under control within an hour, said of the blaze, "The fire itself we've seen many times before, but the complexity involved, then having four children trapped inside the house and in a way feeling a bit helpless you can't get in there.” One firefighter was taken to hospital with chest pains.</p> <p dir="ltr">Victoria Police Detective Senior Sergeant Ashley Ryan said, "our hearts go out to the family and to the community". Arson Squad detectives spent Sunday combing through the scene, and they are still trying to piece together what caused the fire and where it started. Senior Sergeant Ryan said it was too early to say whether or not the fire was suspicious.</p> <p dir="ltr">Police have asked anyone who may have witnessed the inferno to get in touch with information. "We are calling on anyone who may have information who was driving past at the time, any dashcam footage, anything that may be able to assist us with the investigation.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Tributes have been growing at the site since the tragic event, with friends and loved ones of the family gathering in the street, and well-wishers leaving flowers, teddy bears, and messages of support near what remains of the home. A family friend, visibly emotional with grief, told 9News, "The family that survive … it's devastating.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It's just too sad. Too sad."</p> <p dir="ltr">The parents and son who survived the fire remain in stable condition at the Alfred Hospital.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: 9 News</em></p>

News

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Four artists explain how science informs and inspires their work

<p>“The greatest scientists are artists as well,” said Albert Einstein. For as long as artistic expression has existed, it has benefited from interplay with scientific principles – be it experimentation with new materials or the discovery of techniques to render different perspectives. Likewise, art has long contributed to the work and communication of science.</p> <p>We asked four outstanding artists to comment on their work and its relationship to science. “Science is my muse,” replied Xavier Cortada, who marked the discovery of the ‘God particle’ with a set of triumphal banners. The same can be said for the other three: Suzanne Anker renders small worlds in petri dishes, Lia Halloran explores serendipity in science, and Daniel Zeller translates images from alien realms in his own artistic language.</p> <p>Credit: Raul Valverde</p> <p><strong>Suzanne Anker</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 496px; height: 496px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7843784/art-suzanne-anker-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/b5d9c04404f441f7a95f03be92b1a842" /></p> <p>Employed as a container for working with fungi, bacteria and even embryos, the glass dish named after bacteriologist Jules Petri is not only a fundamental of laboratory research: it has become a cultural icon.</p> <p>In my Remote Sensing series I use the Petri dish to juxtapose microscopic and macroscopic worlds. The title refers to new digital technologies that can picture places too toxic or inaccessible to visit.</p> <p>The fabrication of this piece began with 2D digital photographs, which were then converted into 3D virtual models. This petri dish with its luxuriant growth emerged from the 3D printer.</p> <p>These micro-landscapes offer the viewer a top-down topographic effect assembled by zeros and ones. Each configuration of these works takes the geometry of a circle, inspired by the Petri dish, and crosses the divide between the disciplines of art and science.</p> <p>The ‘bio art’ of Suzanne Anker explores the intersection of art and the biological sciences. Based in New York, Anker works in a variety of traditional and experimental mediums ranging from digital sculpture and installation to large-scale photography and plants grown under LED lights. Her work has been exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Pera Museum in Istanbul, and the International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Anker is co-author of The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age (2004) and co-editor of Visual Culture and Bioscience (2008). </p> <p><a href="http://www.suzanneanker.com">www.suzanneanker.com</a></p> <p>Credit: Lia Halloran</p> <p><strong>Lia Halloran</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height: 500px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7843785/art-lia-halloran-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/b408465517604d788b927db09d523746" /></p> <p>The 18th-century French astronomer Charles Messier set his telescopic sights on the grand prize of finding a lonely, wandering comet. He ended up amassing an astronomical inventory filled with galaxies, clusters and nebulae. A catalogue of 110 objects is credited to his journals and drawings.</p> <p>Deep Sky Companion is a series of 110 pairs of paintings and photographs of night sky objects drawn from the Messier catalogue.</p> <p>These works are about discovery and all the things we find when we are not seeking them. It relates to my own challenging first stabs at observing the night sky. In college I was given a small Celestron telescope for Christmas. Observing the Orion Nebula and nearby galaxies seemed to create a fold in time between Messier and myself.</p> <p>I would imagine his sessions observing through his telescope and the drawings he made to classify the natural world and make sense of the unknown above him.</p> <p>Each painting in the Deep Sky Companion series was created in ink on semi-transparent paper, which was then used as a negative to create the positive photographic equivalent using standard black-and-white darkroom printing. This process connects to the historical drawings by Messier, here redrawn and then turned back into positives through a photographic process mimicking early glass-plate astrophotography.</p> <p>Lia Halloran is an artist and academic based in Los Angeles. At Chapman University, in California’s Orange County, she teaches painting as well as courses that explore the intersection of art and science. Her art often makes use of scientific concepts and explores how perception, time and scale inform the human desire to understand the world, and our emotional and psychological place within it. She has held solo exhibitions in New York, Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, London, Vienna and Florence. Her work is held in public collections that include the Guggenheim in New York. </p> <p><a href="http://www.liahalloran.com">www.liahalloran.com</a></p> <p>Credit: Courtesy NASA Art Program</p> <p><strong>Daniel Zeller</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 440px; height: 440px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7843786/art-daniel-zeller-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/0f926a1a4fbf4b3ba0ca9804420ba3a8" /></p> <p>I was very grateful to have the Cassini mission as a launching point for this drawing. (Cassini’s 20-year mission ended in September 2017 when it crashed into Saturn.) There are obvious reasons Titan is so appealing: Saturn’s largest moon has an atmosphere, deserts and seas – it is an alien world with some characteristics we can relate to.</p> <p>The probe generated so much fascinating source material it was difficult to choose any single viewpoint, but there was something particularly intriguing about the image of Titan I finally settled on. Greyscale imagery naturally lends itself to broad interpretation, and the radar-mapping method suited my curiosity and my process; it seems to relay its subject as somehow simultaneously familiar and completely alien. Titan’s surface became a scaffold on which I could build and explore. The relative ambiguity of the source image allowed me wide latitude to interpret the moon as a stand-in for any not-yet-discovered world or landscape, while still allowing it to be grounded in the recognisable projection of topography.</p> <p>The Cassini mission was a truly amazing foray into the unknown. We are greatly enriched by the knowledge it collected. My work is but a humble homage to our immediate neighbourhood – once so far away and now a little bit closer – and to what is yet to be discovered on many frontiers.</p> <p>Daniel Zeller is an illustrator and painter based in New York. His work, inspired by informative images and maps forged by scientific inquiry, resembles microscopic views of intricate cellular structures and macroscopic perspectives of satellite panoramas. He seeks to push the compositional boundaries of a limited range of media, working with ink, acrylic and graphite on paper. His works are part of permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, the Princeton University Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.</p> <p><a href="http://www.danielzeller.net">www.danielzeller.net</a></p> <p>Credit: Xavier Cortada</p> <p><strong>Xavier Cortada</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7843787/art-xavier-cortada-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/c474b72dabb844aaa577417a1c590450" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.0402684563758px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7843787/art-xavier-cortada-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/c474b72dabb844aaa577417a1c590450" /></p> <p>In 2013 I was invited to see the planet’s largest science experiment at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva. My art wound up honouring the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Higgs boson, the particle that imbues all the others with mass. Five banners depict the five experiments used to make the discovery.</p> <p>Identifying the Higgs required the most complex machine humans have ever built, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The particle accelerator shoots protons at almost the speed of light along a 27 km tunnel. Every second 40 million protons collide with one another. These high-energy collisions make new particles and new mass.</p> <p>The LHC’s detectors did not directly measure the Higgs.</p> <p>They measured the paths taken by the photons, quarks and electrons created in the collisions. The curvature of the paths  revealed the charge and momentum of the particles, and the size of the signal their energy. The data told scientists there was another particle – the Higgs boson – produced in the collisions.</p> <p>Let me tell you why these experiments were so important. When physicists first came up with the Standard Model of physics, a theory to describe the forces and particles of nature, they couldn’t figure out how to give those particles mass.</p> <p>This was quite a problem, because particles with no mass would move at the speed of light and be unable to slow down enough to form atoms. Without atoms the universe would be very different.</p> <p>In the 1960s British physicist Peter Higgs and others independently came up with a theory to solve that problem. Just as marine creatures move in water, all particles in the universe move in a fundamental energy field – now commonly known as the Higgs field. As particles travel through the field, their intrinsic properties generate more or less mass – much as the properties of an animal create different degrees of drag as it moves through water.  Think of a barracuda and a manatee. The sleeker barracuda is going to move faster.</p> <p>Mathematically, the theory required the existence of a particle representing the ‘excited state’ of the field. This new particle – dubbed the Higgs boson – would be to the Higgs field what photons are to the electromagnetic field. Finding the particle involved scientists from 182 universities and institutes in 42 countries. On 4 July 2012, half a century after it was first postulated, CERN scientists announced its discovery.</p> <p>The detection itself was intricate and multilayered, and so were the artworks I created. Stained glass references the LHC as a modern-day cathedral that helps us understand the universe and shape our new world view. The oil painting technique honours those who came before us, the repetition of motifs across the five works celebrates internationalism, and rendering the work as ‘banners’ marks this as a monumental event.</p> <p>Most importantly, the background for the banners honours the scientific collaboration. It is composed of words from the pages of 383 joint publications and the names of more than 4,000 scientists, engineers and technicians. With this piece I wanted to create art from the very words, charts, graphs and ideas of this coalition of thinkers.</p> <p>It was a supremely important moment for humanity. I wanted the art to mark that event at the exact location where the experiment took place. These five banners hang at the exact location of the LHC, where the Higgs boson was discovered. That is where a scientific theory crystallised into a proven truth.</p> <p>It is my hope these banners will inspire future generations of physicists to continue to move humanity forward.</p> <p>Xavier Cortada is a painter based in Miami, Florida. His art regularly involves collaboration with scientists. As well as his art installation for CERN, he has worked with a population geneticist on a project exploring our ancestral journey out of Africa 60,000 years ago, with a molecular biologist to synthesise DNA from participants visiting his museum exhibit, and with botanists on eco-art projects. He estimates his installation at the South Pole using a moving ice sheet as an instrument to mark time will be completed in 150,000 years.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cortada.com">www.cortada.com</a></p> <p><strong>Related reading:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/society/when-arts-and-science-collide/">When arts and science collide</a></li> <li><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/how-eye-disorders-may-have-influenced-the-work-of-famous-painters/">Eye disorders influence famous painters</a></li> <li><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/sciences-war-on-art-fraud/?hilite=%27artist%27">Science’s war on art fraud</a></li> </ul> <p><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/society/four-artists-influenced-by-science/">This article</a> was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com">Cosmos Magazine</a> and was written by <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/contributor/cosmos-editors">Cosmos</a>. </p> <p> </p>

Art

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39,000 New South Wales residents still have no idea their data was hacked

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Service NSW are trying to reach nearly 40,000 residents who have unknowingly had their private information stolen. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The massive hacking incident occured in March last year, as Service NSW chief executive Damon Rees discussed the details at a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mr Rees said the “unstructured nature” of the data that hackers gained access to meant it was proving difficult to identify who had been impacted and how to contact them.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He said over 103,000 people had their private information shared online, while one third of the victims still remained unaware. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“It could be the content of an email, it could be a scan of a handwritten document, it could be a scan of a receipt,” Mr Rees said of the stolen data.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He went on to say that Service NSW opted to notify those impacted by post rather than by phone or email, in an effort to minimise further risk. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“If you put all that together, 63,500 customers were ultimately successfully notified out of the 103,000 (that were impacted),” Mr Rees said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He said that because the hackers gained access to people’s emails, the data they collected was scattered and it made it difficult to be certain of the identity of people mentioned in the emails.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“(It impacted our ability) to correlate that information and recognise, that, you know, the information that looks like it relates to someone called Damon Rees in this email account, and the information that looks like it relates to Damond Rees in that email account, are actually the same Damon Rees,” Mr Rees said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Deputy Commissioner for Investigations and Counter Terrorism David Hudson said in February police had a “fairly good handle” on the breach in security, and discussed the nature of their investigation. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We believe there was malicious intent, which would make it a cybercrime,” he said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Some data breaches are caused by human error. Certainly wasn't the case in this — it was malicious actors.”</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credit: Shutterstock</span></em></p>

Technology

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Free, independent advice for your retirement

<p>The Financial Information Service (FIS) is a great government service which was set up as the ‘Financial Information Service for Pensioners’ 29 years ago.</p> <p>It’s been helping older Australians make better decisions about their finances for all of those years, giving them free, independent and confidential advice about retirement, aged care and any taxation implications.</p> <p>Because the FIS was so popular, in 1991, the Department of Human Services expanded it so now people of all ages and all walks of life are able to increase their financial knowledge by accessing the FIS, regardless of their age or income.</p> <p><strong>Anyone can access this free service</strong></p> <p>To access the FIS you simply call up the Department of Human Services on its FIS booking phone line – 132 300 – and ask to speak to an FIS Officer. They will be able to give you advice over the phone or if they are busy, they’ll be able to schedule a call back at a later time.</p> <p>If you’d rather talk with someone face-to-face you can make an appointment to see an FIS Officer and talk with them, asking your questions about your finances. You can also check out what FIS seminars are being held near you and attend one of these. FIS seminar topics include ‘Understanding your pension and your options’ and they also cover what government payments and services you’re eligible for if your financial situation changes.</p> <p><strong>The FIS informs people about matters such as:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Investing principles</li> <li>Superannuation</li> <li>Retirement planning</li> <li>Aged care costs and taxation implications</li> </ul> <p><strong>Once you have access to all of this information, you’ll be better able to:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Understand your own financial affairs and options</li> <li>Understand financial planners and how to use their advice</li> <li>Save and plan for the future through investing</li> <li>Plan for your retirement and increase your overall retirement income</li> <li>Understand what are the costs involved when you move into aged care</li> </ul> <p>It’s important to keep in mind that FIS Officers are not financial planners or counsellors and so they won’t sell you financial advice nor will they tell you how to invest your money. But they will teach you how to understand financial advisors and how to use their advice for your circumstances.</p> <p><strong>A free, impartial service</strong></p> <p>As Financial Information Service officer, Justin Bott explains: “The Financial Information Service is a free, impartial service to help people understand their financial situation and helps them make educated decisions about their finances.”</p> <p>“We listen to what seniors want to hear about and answer their questions on these accounts and in podcasts,” he adds.</p> <p>As well he adds: “The Seniors Update Facebook and Twitter accounts are a great way for us to stay in touch with seniors.”</p> <p><strong>To find out more about the FIS</strong></p> <p>To find out when an FIS seminar is being held in your local area, just head to the Department of Human Services’ website and you’ll find all the information you need <a href="https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/services/financial-information-service">here.</a></p> <p>The website will show all the upcoming FIS seminars by state on its website <a href="http://www.humanservices.gov.au/fis">humanservices.gov.au/fis </a></p> <p>Bookings are essential and people can book by emailing the department at <a href="mailto:fis.seminar.bookings@humanservices.gov.au">fis.seminar.bookings@humanservices.gov.au</a> or calling the FIS seminar booking phone line on 136 357.</p> <p>You can also phone 132 300 and ask to speak to a Financial Information Service Officer over the phone.</p> <p><strong> </strong></p>

Retirement Income

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Surprising new coronavirus symptom has people itching for information

<div class="post_body_wrapper"> <div class="post_body"> <div class="body_text "> <p>As the world continues to battle coronavirus, new symptoms are emerging that have people looking at their feet.</p> <p>With headaches, muscle aches, a dry cough, fever, chills and losing your sense of taste and smell are established, doctors in Italy have noticed a rash appearing on people diagnosed with coronavirus’ toes.</p> <p>Viral rashes can occur when anyone has a virus, but dermatologists in Italy investigated the rate of skin-related symptoms in COVID-19 patients, they discovered one in five coronavirus patients had developed a rash.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr">COVID TOES! As more patients throughout the country are getting tested for COVID-19 and more research is being conducted, more symptoms are starting to emerge, including signs and skin changes to your feet...Sudden onset increase redness, pain, blistering, itchiness. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVIDTOES?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVIDTOES</a> <a href="https://t.co/ldm7zA5BqQ">pic.twitter.com/ldm7zA5BqQ</a></p> — Jason Mendivil, DPM (@Dr_JMendivil) <a href="https://twitter.com/Dr_JMendivil/status/1253038875657846786?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2020</a></blockquote> <p>Texan dermatologist Dr Sanober Amin sparked interest when she suggested that “some skin findings are more consistent with superficial clotting in blood vessels close to the skin”.</p> <p>“It looks like the blood vessels are getting clotted, so patients are presenting with painful bumps on their toes. A lot of these patients are younger population and most of them didn’t have any COVID symptoms or had mild symptoms to begin with,” she said.</p> <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto%2F%3Ffbid%3D714584779277938%26set%3Da.363761154360304&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=552&amp;height=702&amp;appId" width="552" height="702" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe> <p>For scientists, the rash is just more evidence that COVID is one of the “great imitators” as it can present with symptoms that sound like a cold or flu.</p> <p>“There’s clearly a respiratory syndrome, and that’s why people end up in the hospital. Some people get a gastrointestinal illness with diarrhoea, maybe some abdominal pain, which may or may not be associated with a respiratory illness,” Dr Joseph Vinetz, an infectious disease specialist at Yale School of Medicine said.</p> <p>However, Australian infectious diseases expert and ANU Professor Peter Collignon remains cautious.</p> <p>“The one thing that you have to be a bit careful of is people with COVID can have other infections too,’’ he said.</p> <p>“And some of those pictures looked like foot and mouth disease, which is a virus children get. So, you’ve got to be careful that what’s being attributed to COVID is not just another virus they have at the same time.</p> <p>“You can’t assume that just because someone has COVID that COVID is the cause of a rash.”</p> <p>The phenomena of COVID toes has not yet been recognised as a symptom by the World Health Organisation and more work needs to be done to investigate whether or not it is a legitimate symptom.</p> <p>“This is a manifestation that occurs early on in the disease, meaning you have this first, then you progress,” says the University of Pennsylvania’s chief of infectious disease Dr Ebbing Lautenbach.</p> <p> “Sometimes this might be your first clue that they have COVID when they don’t have any other symptoms.”</p> <p>“The short answer is, nobody knows.”</p> </div> </div> </div>

Body

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$350,000 reward for information on great-grandmother’s death

<p>A reward of $350,000 has been offered for information about the suspected hit-and-run death of a great-grandmother at a suburban intersection in Sydney’s south-west five years ago.</p> <p>On February 17, 2015, just after her 83rd birthday, Jean Harrison was found injured on the road at the corner of Shropshire Street and Dorset Place at Miller, near Liverpool.</p> <p>She was reportedly on her daily walk to the local shops when she was hit.</p> <p>Mrs Harrison suffered from cuts to her arm and the back of her neck but was unable to give police any information as she could not recall what had happened.</p> <p>She was taken to Liverpool Hospital in a serious condition and died the next morning.</p> <p>Soon after her death, a police strike force was established, which determined just how severe her injuries were after what they believe, was a hit and run case. However, other possibilities have not been ruled out.</p> <p>“Our investigators believe there are those in community who know more about how she came to be injured on the roadway but for some reason have not come forward,” said Liverpool City Police Area Command Crime Manager Detective Inspector Timothy Liddiard.</p> <p>“To them, I say, ‘Put yourself in the shoes of the family and imagine what it would be like to not know what happened to your loved one.’”</p> <p>Mrs Harrison had lived in the same house in Miller for close to 50 years after migrating to Australia from England. She was a grandmother and great-grandmother to at least 40 children.</p> <p>Her daughter Linda Edwards appealed to the public on Monday, saying there had been “seven more great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren born who she will never get to hold”.</p> <p>“Mum was such a caring person who loved to help others and was truly happy when surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” said Ms Edwards.</p> <p>“We just want to find out what happened to Mum. Please if you know anything, contact police and let them know.”</p>

Caring

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How the use of lasers and small satellites helps information get through space

<p>Satellites are becoming increasingly important in our lives, as they help us meet a demand for more data, exchanged at higher speeds. This is why we are exploring new ways of improving satellite communication.</p> <p>Satellite technology is used to navigate, forecast the weather, monitor Earth from space, receive TV signals from space, and connect to remote places through tools such as satellite phones and <a href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/learn/network-technology/sky-muster-explained">NBN’s Sky Muster satellites</a>.</p> <p>All these communications use radio waves. These are electromagnetic waves that propagate through space and, to a certain degree, through obstacles such as walls.</p> <p>Each communication system uses a frequency band allocated for it, and each band makes up part of the <a href="https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/toolbox/emspectrum1.html">electromagnetic spectrum</a> – which is the name given to the range of all types of electromagnetic radiation.</p> <p>But the electromagnetic spectrum we are able to use with current technology is a finite resource, and is now completely occupied. This means old services have to make room for new ones, or higher frequency bands have to be used.</p> <p>While this poses technological challenges, one promising way forward is optical communication.</p> <p><strong>Communication with lasers</strong></p> <p>Instead of using radio waves to carry the information, we can use light from lasers as the carrier. While technically still part of the electromagnetic spectrum, optical frequencies are significantly higher, which means we can use them to transfer data at higher speeds.</p> <p>However, one disadvantage is that a laser cannot propagate through walls, and can even be blocked by clouds. While this is problematic on Earth, and for communication between satellites and Earth, it’s no problem for communication between satellites.</p> <p>On Earth, optical communication via fibre optic cables connects continents and provides enormous data exchanges. This is the technology that allows <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/4/30/11562024/too-embarrassed-to-ask-what-is-the-cloud-and-how-does-it-work">the cloud</a> to exist, and online services to be provided.</p> <p>Optical communication between satellites doesn’t use fibre optic cables, but involves light propagating through space. This is called “free space optical communication”, and can be used to not only deliver data from satellites to the ground, but also to connect satellites in space.</p> <p>In other words, free space optical communication will provide the same massive connectivity in space we already have on Earth.</p> <p>Some systems such as the <a href="https://artes.esa.int/edrs-global">European Data Relay System</a> are already operational, and others like SpaceX’s <a href="https://www.space.com/see-spacex-starlink-satellites-in-night-sky.html">Starlink</a> continue to be developed.</p> <p>But there are still many challenges to overcome, and we’re limited by current technology. My colleagues and I are working on making optical, as well as radio-frequency, data links even faster and more secure.</p> <p><strong>CubeSats</strong></p> <p>So far, a lot of effort has gone into the research and development of radio-frequency technology. This is how we know data rates are at their highest physical limit and can’t be further increased.</p> <p>While a single radio-frequency link can provide data rates of 10Gbps with large antennas, an optical link can achieve rates 10 to 100 times higher, using antennas that are 10 to 100 times smaller.</p> <p>These small antennas are in fact optical lenses, and their compact size allows them to be integrated into small satellites called CubeSats.</p> <p>CubeSats are not larger than a shoebox or toaster, but can employ high speed data links to other satellites or the ground.</p> <p>They are currently used for a wide range of tasks including earth observation, communications and scientific experiments in space. And while they’re not able to provide all services from space, they play an important role in current and future satellite systems.</p> <p>Another advantage of optical communication is increased security. The light from a laser forms a narrow beam, which has to be pointed from a sender to a receiver. Since this beam is very narrow, the communication doesn’t interfere with other receivers and it’s very hard, if not impossible, to eavesdrop on the communication. This makes optical systems more secure than radio electromagnetic systems.</p> <p>Optical communication can also be used for <a href="https://qt.eu/understand/underlying-principles/quantum-key-distribution-qkd/">Quantum Key Distribution</a>. This technology allows the absolute secure exchange of encryption keys for safe communications.</p> <p><strong>What can we expect from this?</strong></p> <p>While it’s exciting to develop systems for space, and to launch satellites, the real benefit of satellite systems is felt on Earth.</p> <p>High speed communication provided by optical data links will improve connectivity for all of us. Notably, remote areas which currently have relatively slow connections will experience better access to remote health and remote learning.</p> <p>Better data links will also let us deliver images and videos from space with less delay and higher resolution. This will improve the way we manage our resources, including <a href="https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/community-safety/flood/wofs">water</a>, agriculture and forestry.</p> <p>They will also <a href="https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/earth-obs/case-studies/mapping-bushfires">provide vital real-time information in disaster scenarios such as bushfires</a>. The potential applications of optical communication technology are vast.</p> <p><strong>Banding knowledge together</strong></p> <p>Working in optical satellite communication is challenging, as it combines many different fields and research areas including telecommunication, photonics and manufacturing.</p> <p>Currently, our technology is far from achieving what is theoretically possible, and there’s great room for improvement. This is why there’s a strong focus on collaboration.</p> <p>In Australia, there are two major programs facilitating this - the Australian Space Agency run by the federal government, and the <a href="https://smartsatcrc.com/">SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre</a> (CRC), also supported by the federal government.</p> <p>Through the SmartSat CRC program, my colleagues and I will spend the next seven years tackling a range of applied research problems in this area.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126344/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gottfried-lechner-877898">Gottfried Lechner</a>, Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Telecommunications Research, University of South Australia, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-south-australia-1180">University of South Australia</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-using-lasers-and-toaster-sized-satellites-to-beam-information-faster-through-space-126344">original article</a>.</em></p>

Technology

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“Poorly informed teenager”: Vladimir Putin weighs in on Greta Thunberg

<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken aim at Swedish schoolgirl and climate change activist Greta Thunberg, calling her a “poorly informed teenager” who is being “used by adults”. </p> <p>The world leader, 66, said the 16-year-old should quit “telling developing countries why they should live in poverty” over her campaign to cut fossil fuel use.</p> <p>While at the energy forum today Putin expressed he did not share the same excitement about Thunberg’s United Nations speech last month. </p> <p>The swede unleashed at the UN summit in New York when she denounced world leaders for failing to tackle climate change issues. </p> <p>While Putin did not name any specific groups, he said it was “deplorable” Thunberg was being used by groups to achieve their own goals. </p> <p>“I may disappoint you,” the Russian leader said at  a session titled<span> </span>Energy Partnership for Sustainable Growth<span> </span>in Moscow, Russia. </p> <p> “But I don't share the common excitement about the speech by Greta Thunberg.</p> <p>“No one has explained to Greta that the modern world is complex and different and...people in Africa or in many Asian countries want to live at the same wealth level as in Sweden.</p> <p>“Go and explain to developing countries why they should continue living in poverty and not be like Sweden.”</p> <p>US President Donald Trump mocked Thunberg and Canadian Member of Parliament Maxime Bernier labelled her alarmist and mentally unstable. </p> <p>Thunberg was not deterred by the comments however and said the mockery of children who were protesting showed her message had become “too loud to handle”. </p> <p>Putin said while young people who paid attention to environmental issues should be supported, he believes: “when someone is using children and teenagers in personal interests, it only deserves to be condemned.</p> <p>“I'm sure that Greta is a kind and very sincere girl. But adults must do everything not to bring teenagers and children into some extreme situations.”</p> <p>Thunberg made international headlines in September as she inspired millions of people across 150 countries to take to the streets for the Global Strike 4 Climate.</p>

Travel Trouble

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URGENT: Major security breach after customers banking information hacked

<p>An urgent warning has been issued after hackers broke into a new payment system that put tens of thousands of customers’ personal banking information at risk.</p> <p>The scammers were able to obtain phone numbers, customer names, BSB and account numbers which were all linked to PayID. The fraudsters targeted unsuspecting customers with fake texts and phone calls in order to access the New Payments Platform (NPP) database and steal millions of dollars, according to the<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/" target="_blank"><em>Herald Sun</em></a>.</p> <p>All big four banks around the country were affected as those impacted include Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, ANZ and Westpac.</p> <p>Westpac emailed its customers urging them to remain vigilant, as the stolen data could be used to commit fraud.</p> <p>It is understood that the breach initially took place at another bank, but soon spread to other financial institutions.</p> <p>“We have heightened monitoring on your account and ask that you are on the lookout for any suspicious activity,” read the email.</p> <p>“We ask that you also be vigilant with any messages received via text or phone calls from an unidentified source.</p> <p>“We are urging all customers to be wary of any SMS phishing attempts – for example, a personalised message which looks like a legitimate message from Westpac or another bank, in an attempt to acquire banking credentials and password,” it said.</p> <p>The NPP was a highly anticipated initiative that was introduced in 2018, promising to deliver 24/7 instant transfers, as it moved cash in seconds.</p>

Money & Banking

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The internet is now an arena for conflict – and we're all caught up in it

<p>Most people think the internet operates as a kind of global public square. In reality, it’s become a divided arena where conflict between nation states plays out.</p> <p>Nation states run covert operations on the same platforms we use to post cat videos and exchange gossip. And if we’re not aware of it, we could be unwittingly used as pawns for the wrong side.</p> <p>How did we get here? It’s complicated, but let’s walk through some of the main elements.</p> <p><strong>The age of entanglement</strong></p> <p>On the one hand, we have an information landscape dominated by Western culture and huge multi-national internet platforms run by private companies, such as Google and Facebook. On the other, there are authoritarian regimes such as China, Iran, Turkey and Russia exercising tight control over the internet traffic flowing in and out of their countries.</p> <p>We are seeing more cyber intrusions into<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-state-actor-has-targeted-australian-political-parties-but-that-shouldnt-surprise-us-111997">nation state networks</a>, such as the recent hack of the Australian parliamentary network. At the same time,<span> </span><a href="https://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/lucas-kello-gives-evidence-to-house-of-lords-committee.html">information</a><span> </span>and influence operations conducted by countries such as Russia and China are flowing through social media into our increasingly shared digital societies.</p> <p>The result is a<span> </span><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/stack">global</a><span> </span>ecosystem<span> </span><a href="https://nsc.crawford.anu.edu.au/news-events/podcasts/video/10698/towards-political-ecology-cyberspace-3-3">perpetually</a><span> </span>close to the threshold of war.</p> <p>Because nations use the internet both to assert power and to conduct trade, there are incentives for authoritarian powers to keep their internet traffic open. You can’t maintain rigid digital borders and assert cyberpower influence at the same time, so nations have to “<a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/IS3903_pp007-047.pdf">cooperate to compete</a>”.</p> <p>This is becoming known as “entanglement” – and it affects us all.</p> <p><strong>Data flows in one direction</strong></p> <p>Authoritarian societies such as China, Russia and Iran aim to create their own separate digital ecosystems where the government can control internet traffic that flows in and out of the country.</p> <p>The Chinese Communist Party is well known for maintaining a supposedly secure Chinese internet via what is known in the West as the “<a href="https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/FreedomOfInformationChina/the-great-firewall-of-china-background/index.html">Great Firewall</a>”. This is a system that can block international internet traffic from entering China according to the whim of the government.</p> <p>For the majority of the<span> </span><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/china-reaches-800-million-internet-users/">802 million people online</a><span> </span>in China, many of the apps we use to produce and share information are not accessible. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter are blocked. Instead, people in China use apps created by Chinese technology companies, such as Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu.</p> <p>Traffic within this ecosystem is monitored and censored in the most sophisticated and comprehensive surveillance state in the world. In 2018, for example, Peppa Pig was<span> </span><a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-peppa-pig-became-a-gangster-figure-in-china">banned</a> and the People’s Daily referred to her as a “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180502092019/http://media.people.com.cn/BIG5/n1/2018/0426/c40606-29950870.html">gangster</a>” after she became iconic of rebelliousness in Chinese youth culture.</p> <p><strong>Complete blocking of data is impossible</strong></p> <p>A key objective of this firewall is to to shield Chinese society and politics from external influence, while enabling internal surveillance of the Chinese population.</p> <p>But the firewall is not technologically independent of the West – its development has been reliant upon US corporations to supply the software, hardware innovation and training to ensure the system functions. And since the internet is an arena where nations compete for economic advantage, it’s not in the interest of either side to destroy cyberspace entirely.</p> <p>As cyber security expert Greg Austin<span> </span><a href="https://www.springer.com/la/book/9783319684352">has observed</a>, the foundations of China’s cyber defences remain weak. There are technical ways to<span> </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F11957454_2">get around the firewall</a>, and Chinese internet users exploit<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/from-metoo-to-ricebunny-how-social-media-users-are-campaigning-in-china-90860">Mandarin homophones and emoji</a><span> </span>to evade internal censors.</p> <p>Chinese economic and financial entanglement with the West means complete blocking of data is impossible. Consistent incentives to openness remain. China and the United States are therefore engaged in what Canadian scholar of digital media and global affairs Jon R Lindsay<span> </span><a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/IS3903_pp007-047.pdf">describes</a><span> </span>as:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>chronic and ambiguous intelligence-counter intelligence contests across their networks, even as the internet facilitates productive exchange between them.</em></p> </blockquote> <p>That is, a tension exists because they are covertly working against each other on exactly the same digital platforms necessary to promote their individual and mutual interests in areas such as trade, manufacturing, communications and regulation.</p> <p>Since Russia is less dependent upon the information technology services of the United States and is therefore less entangled than China, it is<span> </span><a href="https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/unsw-canberra-cyber/news/australian-cyber-ideas-moscow">more able</a><span> </span>to engage in bilateral negotiation and aggression.</p> <p><strong>Different styles of influence</strong></p> <p>If the internet has become a contest between nation states, one way of winning is to appear to comply with the letter of the law, while abusing its spirit.</p> <p>In the West, a network of private corporations, including Twitter, Google and Facebook, facilitate an internet system where information and commerce flow freely. Since the West remains open, while powers such as Russia and China exercise control over internet traffic, this creates an imbalance that can be exploited.</p> <p>Influence operations conducted by China and Russia in countries such as Australia exist within this larger context. And they are being carried out in the digital arena on a<span> </span><a href="https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/update-state-sponsored-activity/">scale</a>never before experienced. In the words of the latest<span> </span><a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR---SSCI.pdf">US Intelligence Community Worldwide Threat Assessment</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>Our adversaries and strategic competitors […] are now becoming more adept at using social media to alter how we think, behave and decide.</em></p> </blockquote> <p>The internet is a vast infrastructure of tools that can be used to strategically manipulate behaviour for specific tactical gain, and each nation has its own style of influence.</p> <p>I have previously written about attempts by<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-digital-media-blur-the-border-between-australia-and-china-101735">China</a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/russian-trolls-targeted-australian-voters-on-twitter-via-auspol-and-mh17-101386">Russia</a><span> </span>to influence Australian politics via social media, showing how each nation state utilises different tactics.</p> <p>China takes a subtle approach, reflecting a long term strategy. It seeks to connect with the Chinese diaspora in a<span> </span><a href="https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/57781/apt/operation-cloud-hopper-apt10.html">target country</a>, and shape opinion in a manner favourable to the Chinese Communist Party. This is often as much as about<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-china-will-be-watching-how-we-commemorate-anzac-day-75856">ensuring some things aren’t said</a>as it is about shaping what is.</p> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/russian-trolls-targeted-australian-voters-on-twitter-via-auspol-and-mh17-101386">Russia</a>, on the other hand, has used more obvious tactics to infiltrate and disrupt Australian political discourse on social media,<span> </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/weve-been-hacked-so-will-the-data-be-weaponised-to-influence-election-2019-heres-what-to-look-for-112130">exploiting</a><span> </span>Islamophobia – and the divide between left and right – to undermine social cohesion. This reflects Russia’s primary aim to destabilise the civic culture of the target population.</p> <p>But there are some similarities between the two approaches, reflecting a growing cooperation between them. As the<span> </span><a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR---SSCI.pdf">US Intelligence Community</a><span> </span>points out:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.</em></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>A strategic alliance between Russia and China</strong></p> <p>The strategic<span> </span><a href="https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2017/07/24/forget-sun-tzu-the-art-of-modern-war-can-be-found-in-a-chinese-strategy-book-from-1999/">origins of these shared approaches</a><span> </span>go back to the early internet itself. The Russian idea of<span> </span><a href="https://www.nato.int/DOCU/review/2015/Also-in-2015/hybrid-modern-future-warfare-russia-ukraine/EN/index.htm">hybrid warfare</a><span> </span>– also known as the<span> </span><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/05/im-sorry-for-creating-the-gerasimov-doctrine/">Gerasimov Doctrine</a><span> </span>– uses information campaigns to undermine a society as part of a wider strategy.</p> <p>But this concept first originated in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In 1999, Chinese PLA colonels penned a strategy titled<span> </span><a href="https://www.oodaloop.com/documents/unrestricted.pdf">Unrestricted Warfare</a>, which outlined how to use media, government, pretty much everything, in the target country not as a tool, but as a weapon.</p> <p>It recommended not just cyber attacks, but also fake news campaigns – and was the basis for information campaigns that became famous during the 2016 US presidential election.</p> <p>In June 2016, Russia and China<span> </span><a href="http://www.russia.org.cn/en/russia_china/president-vladimir-putin-and-chairman-of-the-people-s-republic-of-china-xi-jinping-held-talks-in-beijing-june-25-2016/">signed</a><span> </span>a joint declaration on the internet, affirming their shared objectives. In December 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on a new<span> </span><a href="http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/official_documents/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/id/2563163">Doctrine of Information Security</a>, which establishes how Russia will<span> </span><a href="https://www.cyberdb.co/russia-and-china-are-making-their-information-security-case/">defend</a><span> </span>its own population against influence operations.</p> <p><a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d23109be-661d-4e90-a92c-32b7330e3a49">Observers</a><span> </span>noted the striking similarity between the Russian document and Chinese internet<span> </span><a href="https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/cybersecuritylaw/?lang=en">law</a>.</p> <p>Russia and China also<span> </span><a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/cyberattack-revelations-appear-undercut-russia-un">share a view</a><span> </span>of the global management of the internet, pursued via the United Nations:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>[…] more regulations to clarify how international law applies to cyberspace, with the aim of exercising more sovereignty – and state control – over the internet.</em></p> </blockquote> <p>The recent “sovereign internet”<span> </span><a href="http://sozd.duma.gov.ru/bill/608767-7">bill</a><span> </span>introduced to the Russian Parliament<span> </span><a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-bill-on-autonomous-operation-of-internet-advances-in-duma/29765882.html">proposes</a><span> </span>a Domain Name System (DNS) independent of the wider internet infrastructure.</p> <p>If the internet is now a site of proxy war, such<span> </span><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2466222">so-called</a><span> </span>“<a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/q-a-hurdles-ahead-as-russia-surges-on-with-sovereign-internet-plan/29766229.html">balkanization</a>” challenges the dominance of the United States.</p> <p>Nations are competing for<span> </span><a href="https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/harnessing-david-and-goliath-orthodoxy-asymmetry-and-competition">influence, leverage and advantage</a><span> </span>to secure their own interests. Russia and China don’t want to risk an all out war, and so competition is pursued at a level just below armed conflict.</p> <p>Technology, especially the internet, has brought this competition to us all.</p> <p><strong>We're entering turbulent waters</strong></p> <p>Despite its best efforts, China’s leaders remain concerned that the digital border between it and the rest of the world is too porous.</p> <p>In June 2009, Google was blocked in China. In 2011, Fang Binxing, one of the main designers of the<span> </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/great-firewall-of-china">Great Firewall</a><span> </span>expressed concern Google<span> </span><a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=dEGdCwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA113&amp;lpg=PA113&amp;dq=Fang+Binxing+2011+riverbed+benjamin+bratton&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=61Gnc-6vW-&amp;sig=ITVdygMm5ZmxuelLYB6w9oa6Cos&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwib66X9mPvcAhXHU7wKHRHrDiUQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=Fang%20Binxing%202011%20riverbed%20benjamin%20bratton&amp;f=false">was still potentially accessible in China</a>, saying:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>It’s like the relationship between riverbed and water. Water has no nationality, but riverbeds are sovereign territories, we cannot allow polluted water from other nation states to enter our country.</em></p> </blockquote> <p>The water metaphor was deliberate. Water flows and maritime domains define sovereign borders. And water flows are a good analogy for data flows. The internet has pitched democratic politics into the fluid dynamics of<span> </span><a href="http://politicalturbulence.org/">turbulence</a>, where algorithms shape<span> </span><a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwjden/targeted-advertising-is-ruining-the-internet-and-breaking-the-world">attention</a>, tiny clicks<span> </span><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-science-research-and-methods/article/quota-sampling-using-facebook-advertisements/0E120F161C9E114C6044EBB7792B5E70">measure participation</a>, and personal data is<span> </span><a href="https://www.chinoiresie.info/the-global-age-of-algorithm-social-credit-and-the-financialisation-of-governance-in-china/">valuable</a><span> </span>and apt to be<span> </span><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3224952">manipulated</a>.</p> <p>While other nations grapple with the best mix of containment, control and openness, ensuring Australia’s<span> </span><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/china-in-focus/10181900">democracy remains robust</a><span> </span>is the best defence. We need to keep an eye on the nature of the political discussion online, which requires a coordinated approach between the government and private sector, defence and security agencies, and an educated public.</p> <p>The strategies of information warfare we hear so much about these days were conceived in the 1990s – an era when “surfing the web” seemed as refreshing as a dip at your favourite beach. Our immersion in the subsequent waves of the web seem more threatening, but perhaps we can draw upon our cultural traditions to influence Australian security.</p> <p>As the rip currents of global internet influence operations grow more prevalent, making web surfing more dangerous, Australia would be wise to mark out a safe place to swim between the flags. Successful protection from influence will need many eyes watching from the beach.</p> <p class="p1"><em><span class="s1">Written by Tom Sear. Republished with permission of </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-internet-is-now-an-arena-for-conflict-and-were-all-caught-up-in-it-101736"><span class="s1">The Conversation.</span></a></em></p>

Technology

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My Health Record: Why deleting your personal information is harder than it sounds

<p><strong><em>Robert Merkel is a lecturer in Software Engineering at Monash University. </em></strong></p> <p>Since the period for opting out of My Health Record began on July 16, experts in health, privacy and IT have raised concerns about the security and privacy protections of the system, and the legislation governing its operation.</p> <p>Now federal health minister Greg Hunt has <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2018-hunt100.htm">announced</a></strong></span> two key changes to the system.</p> <p>First, the legislation will be amended to explicitly require a court order for any documents to be released to a law enforcement agency. Second, the system will be modified to allow the permanent deletion of records:</p> <p><em>In addition, the Government will also amend Labor’s 2012 legislation to ensure if someone wishes to cancel their record they will be able to do so permanently, with their record deleted from the system.</em></p> <p>But while this sounds like a simple change, permanently and completely deleting information from IT systems is anything but straightforward.</p> <p><strong>Systems designed for retention, not deletion</strong></p> <p>The My Health Record database is designed for the long-term retention of important information. Most IT systems designed for this purpose are underpinned by the assumption that the risk of losing information – through a hardware fault, programming mistake, or operator error – should be extremely low.</p> <p>The exact details of how My Health Record data is protected from data loss are not public. But there are several common measures that systems like it incorporate to greatly reduce the risks.</p> <p>At a most basic level, “deletion” of a record stored in a database is often implemented simply by marking a record as deleted. That’s akin to deleting something on paper by drawing a thin line through it.</p> <p>The software can be programmed to ignore any such deleted records, but the underlying record is still present in the database – and can be retrieved by an administrator with unfettered permissions to access the database directly.</p> <p>This approach means that if an operator error or software bug results in an incorrect deletion, repairing the damage is straightforward.</p> <p>Furthermore, even if data is actually deleted from the active database, it can still be present in backup “snapshots” that contain the complete database contents at some particular moment in time.</p> <p>Some of these backups will be retained – untouched and unaltered – for extended periods, and will only be accessible to a small group of IT administrators.</p> <p><strong>Zombie records</strong></p> <p>Permanent and absolute deletion of a record in such a system will therefore be a challenge.</p> <p>If a user requests deletion, removing their record from the active database will be relatively straightforward (although even this has some complications), but removing them from the backups is not.</p> <p>If the backups are left unaltered, we might wonder in what circumstances the information in those backups would be made accessible.</p> <p>If, by contrast, the archival backups are actively and irrevocably modified to permit deletion, those archival backups are at high risk of other modifications that remove or modify wanted data. This would defeat the purpose of having trusted archival backups.</p> <p><strong>Backups and the GDPR's 'right to be forgotten'</strong></p> <p>The problem of deleting personal information and archival backups has been raised in the context of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/justice-and-fundamental-rights/data-protection/2018-reform-eu-data-protection-rules_en">GDPR</a></strong></span>). This new EU-wide law greatly strengthens privacy protections surrounding use of personal information in member states.</p> <p>The “right to erasure” or “right to be forgotten” – <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/">Article 17</a></strong></span> of the GDPR – states that organisations storing the personal information of EU citizens “shall have the obligation to erase personal data without undue delay” in certain circumstances.</p> <p>How this obligation will be met in the context of standard data backup practices is an interesting question, to say the least. While the legal aspects of this question are beyond my expertise, from a technical perspective, there is no easy general-purpose solution for the prompt deletion of individual records from archived data.</p> <p>In an <a href="https://www.acronis.com/en-us/blog/posts/backups-and-gdpr-right-be-forgotten-recommendations"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>essay</strong></span></a> posted to their corporate website, data backup company Acronis proposes that companies should be transparent about what will happen to the backups of customers who request that records be deleted:</p> <p><em>[while] primary instances of their data in production systems will be erased with all due speed … their personal data may reside in backup archives that must be retained for a longer period of time – either because it is impractical to isolate individual personal data within the archive, or because the controller is required to retain data longer for contractual, legal or compliance reasons.</em></p> <p><strong>Who might access those backups?</strong></p> <p>Data stored on archival backups, competently administered, will not be available to health professionals. Nor will they be available to run-of-the-mill hackers who might steal a practitioner’s credentials to gain illicit access to My Health Record.</p> <p>But it’s not at all clear whether law enforcement bodies, or anyone else, could potentially access a deleted record if they are granted access to archival backups by the system operator.</p> <p>Under amended legislation, such access would undoubtedly require a court order. Nevertheless, were it to be permitted, access to a deleted record under these circumstances would be contrary to the general expectation that when a record is deleted, it is promptly, completely and irrevocably deleted, with no prospect of retrieval.</p> <p><strong>Time required to work through the details </strong></p> <p>In my view, more information on the deletion process, and any legislative provisions surrounding deleted records, needs to be made public. This will allow individuals to make an informed choice on whether they are comfortable with the amended security and privacy provisions.</p> <p>Getting this right will take time and extensive expert and public consultation. It is very difficult to imagine how this could take place within the opt-out period, even taking into account the <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/ehealth-records-opt-out-period-extended/news-story/d245f3601ee494959b854eb9b8c8ae15"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>one-month extension</strong></span></a> just announced by the minister.</p> <p>Given that, it would be prudent to pause the roll-out of My Health Record for a considerably longer period. This would permit the government to properly address the issues of record deletion, as well as the numerous other privacy and security concerns raised about the system.</p> <p><em>Written by Robert Merkel. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com"><strong><u>The Conversation.</u></strong> </a></em></p> <p><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100962/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /></p>

Caring

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Why respite care is so important for informal carers

<p><em><strong>Marissa Sandler is the CEO and co-founder of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.careseekers.com.au/" target="_blank">Careseekers</a></span>. Previously a social justice lawyer and researcher for over 15 years, Marissa is passionate about helping people live with dignity and finding innovative solutions to problems.</strong></em></p> <p>The end of the year is a great time of year, no school traffic, quiet streets and most of Australia takes a break. However, if you are an informal carer this may not be the case. Caring is a full-time job and doesn’t stop because its summer or Christmas or New Years. It is however very important that as a carer you do take a break. The best way to do this is by engaging respite care services of some description.</p> <p>Here are some fast facts to read about respite care so that you can take a break over the festive season.</p> <p><strong>What is respite care?</strong></p> <p>Respite care is care that is taken over by someone else to relieve an informal carer of their care giving duties for a loved one.</p> <p><strong>How does it work?</strong></p> <p>Respite care can be delivered in many forms.</p> <p><strong>1. Respite care in the home</strong> – A care or support worker can come into your home and take the load off you by looking after a loved one for a few short hours or even a few days/weeks. Connecting directly to care and support workers on platforms like <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.careseekers.com.au/" target="_blank">Careseekers</a></strong></span> is one way to find people who deliver respite care services.</p> <p><strong>2. Respite care in the community</strong> – Most local communities have adult day centres or neighbourhood centres where a loved one can go for the day. They will do casual drop ins as well on days when you may be feeling extra frazzled.</p> <p><strong>3. Residential based respite care</strong> – This type of centre enables loved ones to stay for an extended period of time – a few weeks and can be helpful if you need to travel.</p> <p><strong>4. Family or friend care respite</strong> – Close family and friends may be available to help you, especially if you open up and explain your situation and how additional help would lighten your load. There are also organisations who can send a volunteer to do some respite care.</p> <p>Emergency respite care and information on other types of respite care is available through <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.myagedcare.gov.au/caring-someone/respite-care" target="_blank">My Aged Care</a></strong></span> or  <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.carergateway.gov.au/what-is-respite-care?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIn5rRgJTo1wIVRyQrCh3uXQGuEAAYAiAAEgIomfD_BwE" target="_blank">The Carer Gateway</a></strong></span>.</p> <p><strong>Real life story</strong></p> <p>It was difficult for Cathy to watch her vivacious, opinionated mother Mary spiral into the depths of dementia. As her mother deteriorated further, Dora and her siblings assessed their options. They were adamant about keeping Mary at home. Luckily Cathy was able to move in with her mother and take on a full time caring role.</p> <p>Caring can be exhausting and Cathy soon found she needed some time out. With her other siblings unable to help, the family decided to hire in-home care workers. During her time off Cathy would book into a hotel and just have some down time. It made all the difference to the type of carer she was to her mum during the week. “It really recharged me for the week ahead. I was more patient and as a result mum was happier. If you are a full-time carer for a loved one you just have to have some time out.”</p>

Caring

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6 golden rules to keep your smartphone safe while travelling

<p>New technology means you have to think about a whole new kind of theft while on the road – the information stored on your smartphone.</p> <p><strong>1. Be careful of public Wi-Fi</strong></p> <p>Data usage can be a huge expense when travelling, so it’s always nice to see a free Wi-Fi network that doesn’t require a password pop up on your phone. Before you log on, keep in mind that these networks are accessible to everyone – including the bad guys who will try to hack into your phone. Try to use encrypted networks that require a log in as these can provide a higher level of security.</p> <p><strong>2. Turn off Bluetooth pairings</strong></p> <p>Bluetooth provides another avenue for hackers to access your phone. Switch your Bluetooth settings to ‘non-discoverable’, which means that any other devices around you won’t be able to see you. If you see a request for pairing come up from an unknown device, always reject it.</p> <p><strong>3. Don’t save your important details</strong></p> <p>It can be much easier to save your passwords or even credit card details on your phone so you don’t have to reenter them every time. But using the autofill feature means that if someone does manage to hack your phone, they have all of your details ready to go.</p> <p><strong>4. Keep your device up to date</strong></p> <p>Make sure that your phone is operating on the latest software update. These will generally include the best security settings to protect you from unsafe networks. If you’re really worried, you can install a third party security app that will act like virus protection software on your computer. This can be useful if you’re travelling in a country where malware is especially prevalent, like China or Russia.</p> <p><strong>5. Resist the urge to click</strong></p> <p>One of the most common ways that malware gets into your phone is because you invite it. If you’re browsing the web or using a new app, be wary of pop ups that ask you to click to continue or to agree to terms. A good rule of thumb is if you see anything you don’t trust come onto your screen, close the application immediately.</p> <p><strong>6. Secure the device itself</strong></p> <p>Your data is also in danger if you lose or someone steals the phone itself. This little device can give them access to just about everything you use, from your email to social media and even things like bank accounts. Make sure your phone always requires a PIN to unlock or some will even let you use a fingerprint.</p> <p>Do you generally take your smartphone on holidays, and what measures do you take to ensure its safe? Do you think it’s worth having on your trip?</p> <p>Share your thoughts in the comments.</p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><a href="/health/body/2016/06/tips-to-stop-eye-strain-from-phones-and-tablets/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>5 tips to stop eye strain from phones and tablets</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/technology/2016/06/how-a-mobile-phone-can-save-your-life/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>How a mobile phone can save your life</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/travel/international/2016/06/flight-attendant-tips-for-an-easy-flight/" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em>Flight attendant reveals 6 top tips for an easy fight</em></strong></span></a></p>

Travel Tips

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The importance of being a smart traveller

<p>The Australian Government’s Smart Traveller website is an invaluable resource that provides up to the minute information about conditions overseas.</p> <p>We’re going to run you through the best ways to utilise <a href="http://smartraveller.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Smart Traveller</span></strong></a>, so you can ensure you’re contactable overseas, understand the risks posed by your planned destination and receive up to the minute advice as you’re enjoying your holiday.</p> <p><strong>Registering your trip</strong></p> <p>Before venturing overseas, the Australian Government recommends all travellers register their plans with Smart Traveller. While you will have to sign up and provide personal details, registering makes you far more contactable in the event of an emergency.  </p> <p>An example of a situation where this would be handy, would be if you were exploring a foreign country that expected a natural disaster or civil unrest. While you’re on holidays it can be hard to keep in touch with the news, so you may be completely unaware of the tricky situation you’re walking into. Registering with Smart Traveller ensures the government has your contact details overseas, so they can easily track you down if something goes wrong.</p> <p><strong>Subscribing to updates</strong></p> <p>Just as important perhaps as registering your trip, is subscribing to the travel update service that provides up to the minute advice on the country you’re visiting.</p> <p>Even a simple measure like regularly checking Smart Traveller’s Facebook page can be a good way to keep on top of conditions over the course of your journey and understanding the nature of any threats that might be presented along the way.</p> <p><strong>Receiving regular travel advice</strong></p> <p>Smart Traveller also has a substantial travel advice section that everyone planning a trip should take advantage of. From general advice regarding what trip planning and what to do if something goes wrong overseas to more specific details on particular locations, Smart Traveller is your eyes and ears on the ground that keeps you abreast of the risks. </p> <p>Do you check the Smart Traveller website before you go overseas and register your trip plans? Is there any other measures you take?</p> <p>Share your thoughts in the comments below.</p> <p><strong><em>Have you arranged your travel insurance yet? Tailor your cover to your needs and save money by not paying for things you don’t need. <a href="https://elevate.agatravelinsurance.com.au/oversixty?utm_source=over60&amp;utm_medium=content&amp;utm_content=link1&amp;utm_campaign=travel-insurance" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">To arrange a quote, click here.</span></a> For more information about Over60 Travel Insurance, call 1800 622 966.</em></strong></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><a href="/travel/travel-insurance/2016/03/how-to-make-a-diy-travel-wallet/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>How to make a DIY travel wallet</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/travel/travel-insurance/2016/04/10-tips-for-surviving-a-long-bus-trip/"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>10 tips for surviving a long bus trip</em></span></strong></a></p> <p><a href="/travel/travel-insurance/2016/05/aussie-hotels-defend-charging-guests-for-wifi/"><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Aussie hotels defend charging guests for Wi-Fi</span></em></strong></a></p>

Travel Insurance

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7 astounding things you won’t believe are covered by travel insurance

<p>Want to do something crazy on your next holiday? Make sure you’re covered. Under Over60 Travel Insurance, the following activities are covered, subject to the terms and conditions detailed in the Product Disclosure Statement.</p><p><strong>Aqua zorbing</strong></p><p>The Kiwis invented this pastime, which involves rolling down a grassy slope inside a giant rubber orb with water inside to soften the ride – similar to a hamster ball or being in a washing machine. Zorbs have reached speeds upwards of 50 kilometres an hour and there have been a few recorded fatalities, so check the safety procedures carefully.</p><p><strong>Skateboarding (not vertical skating)</strong></p><p>If you like a bit of skate action, you will be pleased to know that going for a ride on your board is a covered activity.</p><p><strong>Shark cage diving (subject to restrictions)</strong></p><p>Jump in the water with deadly great whites off the coast of South Africa or South Australia. You’ll be behind metal bars, but the sharks still come extremely close. We’re not sure what type of injuries you might sustain here, but we recommend keeping your hands inside the cage at all times…</p><p><strong>Dance (including interpretive dance)</strong></p><p>Thank goodness. Because what’s a holiday without a little interpretive dance?</p><p><strong>Racing on foot</strong></p><p>Fancy a marathon while you’re travelling? We thought you might. Well racing on foot for distances up to 42.2 kilometers is another covered activity.</p><p><strong>Go-karting</strong></p><p>If you want to feel a little wind on your face and take on your travel companions in a go-karting arena, you can do so with the peace of mind that this is a covered activity.</p><p><strong>Dog sledding</strong></p><p>Next time you venture overseas why not book a spot of dog sledding –cover is provided for this with Over60 Travel Insurance.</p><p><em>Image credit:&nbsp;<span>ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock.com</span></em></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><a href="https://elevate.agatravelinsurance.com.au/oversixty?utm_source=over60&amp;utm_medium=content&amp;utm_content=link3&amp;utm_campaign=travel-insurance"><em><strong>Never leave for holiday without travel insurance.</strong></em></a></em></span></p><p><strong>Related links:</strong></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/travel/travel-insurance/2015/02/best-travel-tips/" target="_blank">Travel tips everyone will want to know</a></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/travel/travel-insurance/2014/12/travel-insurance-facts/" target="_blank">Surprising facts about travel insurance</a></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong><a href="/travel/travel-insurance/2014/12/travel-emergencies/" target="_blank">What to do in an emergency while travelling</a></strong></em></span></p>

Travel Insurance

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