Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I’d assume that a researcher developing pesticides will be looking for substances with minimal rather than maximal hazard to humans.
Except that synthesised chemicals that are toxic to insects tend to be unavoidably toxic to humans. Scientists didn't particularly go looking for the likes of V-series nerve agents, they found them by accident while researching pesticides. Since it's illegal to develop or test chemical weapons in this country a scientist is not going to go looking and is certainly not going to establish the extreme human toxicity associated with a possible chemical weapon. As the Wikipedia article spells out it was the post-market release realisation of extreme toxicity that discovered V-series agents; if the scientists had been looking for chemical weapons from the outset they wouldn't have put them on the shelves of gardening supply stores with a trade name.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Ross Mason,
Does this count as “dual use technology”?
No. In this context dual-use is stuff like chemical-engineering process control systems, and high-grade metal alloys that can be used in processes that require non-reactive vessels and piping.
When you consider that pretty much every significant chemical weapon currently ‘in use’ is a by-product of pesticide research, the potential for some of our agricultural research to yield unseen (and therefore unresearched) new chemical weapons is also real. It’s possible that there’s stuff going on that might lead towards bio-weapons, but it’s probably not terribly likely. Much more likely to be chemical weapons, or maybe nuclear but as a non-proliferation signatory with very minimal nuclear capability (ETA: as in research facilities) it’s unlikely.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Peter Graham,
• attempts to acquire controlled and dual-use technology from New Zealand present the greatest single proliferation-related threat to New Zealand, and will likely remain so for the next few years; and
• New Zealand will continue to be an attractive target for foreign WMD procurement companies, and could become increasingly targeted as a source of niche controlled and dual-use goods and technology, particularly if other countries continue to tighten their proliferation-related trade restrictions.These two things. Since NZ really doesn't have much of a military-industrial complex that might be researching dual-use technologies, it's likely going to be our agricultural sector that's targeted. Dual-use is hard to pin down, too, since it's not always obvious until it's too late.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to David Hood,
I hope what they would be talking about is attempts to use a NZ subsidiary of a global defense company to access that companies information (something like Raytheon)
That's a point. Rakon make RF receiver crystals that can be used in missiles.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Ross Mason,
Colon (sic)
That's how it's pronounced.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
If a supplier puts an undeclared back door into a device allowing unauthorised access, that’s probably an offence under s216 or s249 of the Crimes Act and would be a police matter. So it should be for the police to look at this.
Yes, and once a threat to our national communications infrastructure has been rolled out widely and is in use (probably has been used, putting us really deep in the poo), we'll send the police to a foreign country to affect the arrest and prosecution of those naughty government officials who fomented such mischief.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Rob Stowell,
I’m pretty sure neither does Keith Locke
Doing away with any external intelligence function speaks to a firm belief in a very, very benign threat environment. It completely excludes, for example, the belief that corporate espionage is in any way a risk to NZ.
As another example, we'd be utterly reliant on the US and Australian stance on Huawei equipment without the in-house knowledge of GCSB. The Royal NZ Corps of Signals don't have the capacity to evaluate that threat, and nor is it any part of their core duty to have that capacity. Personally, I'd rather we weren't reliant on vested corporate interests to assess threats to our telecommunications infrastructure, and the irony of Locke wanting GCSB disbanded is that it would have a consequence of forcing NZ to rely on US and Australian intelligence assessments of such matters. -
Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Rob Stowell,
‘Just lost access’ implies this has been a regular- and necessary occurrence. I don’t agree
You don't agree that it's been regular? Or that it's been necessary. Kitteridge's report suggests this "service" has been available to and used by other agencies for considerably longer than the 2003 Act has existed.
Necessary? That's back to arguing that we don't need intelligence services or the ability for the police (at the very minimum) to monitor the communications of those who may wish NZ harm. I, personally, do not subscribe to the Keith Locke school of thinking that NZ lives in a totally benign environment in which the only threats to NZ come from our intelligence services' existence.Nobody has answered my question about replacing GCSB with telco, either. None of you willing to engage in that particular logical exercise?
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Not arguing that GCSB didn't break the law, Keir. Just arguing that it's not obvious that Parliament intended that GCSB not assist other agencies, and pointing out that someone is going to have these capabilities even if it's not GCSB. If the resolution to the current situation was that GCSB was informed in absolute terms that it does not, ever, in any circumstances, spy on NZ citizens and residents, the outcome would be that NZSIS and the Police will seek funding to establish the capability to which they've just lost access. Anyone who thinks that won't happen is, I suggest, as naive as Russell Norman with his assertion that we don't need any intelligence services whatsoever.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Whether or not you read it differently to me is kinda beside the point. What matters is how it gets interpreted in practice, and in practice they do the things I said. Also, the Act doesn't empower them to take over other agencies' responsibility for their own security, and that's perfectly clear in any interpretation. So regardless of what you think the Act does or doesn't allow them to do, they have no responsibility for the security of any of the networks you listed because not a single one of them is run by or for GCSB.