Posts by nzlemming
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Hard News: Snowden and New Zealand, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I think most languages use <= rather than !> or ≯
They do, but they don't mean the same thing, conceptually. Sometimes, you just want to be that precise.
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Hard News: Snowden and New Zealand, in reply to Russell Brown,
1. Vetting by the SIS is only for Confidential (CV), Secret (SV) and Top Secret (TSV). (Not Restricted as mention by Mark) There are also levels above TSV.
The first rule of security clearances is not to talk about security clearances ;-)
I thought I said that only SV and TSV required vetting, not Restricted and Confidential. It may have changed since I was last working for government in 2005, but I seem to remember that Confidential was at the CE's discretion. Maybe not.
3. For SV (possibly) and TSV (certainly, I know!), you are interviewed by the SIS as well as your referees – so it is a time consuming process.
When I held a TSV, my referees were definitely interviewed - probably I was as well, I don't remember (long time ago now). There are probably still a few sysadmin/IT managers around who would curse my name for pointing out to my CE that I had access to all his files and email, so really he should have me vetted ;-)
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For the non-geeks, ”!=” means “not equal” (and is pronounced “bang-equal” if you’re that way inclined) just the same as ”!>” is “not greater than” as opposed to “<” which is “less than" and not the same as “not greater than” #protip
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Hard News: Snowden and New Zealand, in reply to Matthew Poole,
“Unclassified” != “not yet classified”.
Word.
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OnPoint: Budget 2014: Yeah okay., in reply to Sacha,
That must represent some internal transfer of functions?
But the entities don't exist, that's my point, not the change in budget amounts. Seems to me that the government doesn't want to admit just how big MoBIE has got.
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Just a first glance but these things stood out:
MoBIE 2.3B in 2015 (down 16.7% 2014-2015)
DoL 1.1B (down 10.1% 2014-2015)
MED 254M (down 30.7% 2014-2015)
MSI 113.4M (down 0.3% 2014-2015)
DBH $74.9M (down 48.1% 2014-2015)All as separate line items, yet the later 4 were subsumed into the former which takes actual MoBIE expenditure to $3.8B – now there may be valid statutory reasons for identifying things separately (e.g. Marsden Fund) but they shouldn’t be listing them as separate entities, still.
Also, a number of items in the MoBIE breakdown come up as “Policy advice and outputs” without identifying what these things are for. Will the detail be forthcoming in a later iteration, Keith?
And, finally I notice that the Commerce Commission Litigation Funds $7M and 3.5m as separate packages of new money in MoBIE’s budget (i.e. didn’t exist before). And the Financial Markets Authority Litigation Fund ($2M down 1.9%) Takeovers Panel Litigation Fund ($200K down 1.9%) are also in MoBIE’s budget. Now, I know for a fact that nothing leaves MoBIE without going through Joyce’s office, even before it gets to the responsible minister so that tells me a little something about how this government intends to regulate the market…
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OnPoint: Budget 2014: Yeah okay., in reply to Russell Brown,
This will cost only what it costs to serve the loan, but I'm not clear on how NZTA pays it back. Is it fair or not to say that the $375m loan is a dodge to contrive the $372m surplus?
Seems about right. NZTA is only too willing to bend over backwards for the political masters, as long as they get to build ROADS!!!
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Hard News: Snowden and New Zealand, in reply to Paul Campbell,
yes – but if the reason you need the experience is so you know what to do once you’ve broken info one or more of these it’s a bit more nefarious.
Now that is truly paranoid, and I speak as one who... let's say "is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt" that there are dirty dealings done dirt cheap at the 5Eyes crossroads. Any hacker worth her salt (govt or private) would regard these things as basic elements of her craft, and they're both downloadable quietly in the background - you don't have to advertise the fact by issuing an RFP.
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Hard News: Snowden and New Zealand, in reply to Idiot Savant,
There’s a candidate guide here.
Ah, thank you, I knew there was one somewhere.
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Hard News: Snowden and New Zealand, in reply to Russell Brown,
It’s a little fiddly finding these in the docs (the page numbering doesn’t correspond to actual pagination) so here’s the map of where our packets are intercepted (click to embiggen). Far out.
One does wonder where the redacted places are ;-)
Also, hardly surprised by Hawaii but hadn't thought about Indonesia, which might explain a few things...