Brief Background: In the last two months Australia (at this time under a so called conservative Liberal Government) has re-affirmed its anti-market controlled economy approach to economics with the establishment of an IT bureaucracy, forcing ISP's to 'join' the TIO and fund its operations, establishing the framework for a possible cencorship regime on the internet, proposed legislation for key escrow wrt VPN's and pursuing its favoured entrail reading approach to economics by yet again believing it can 'pick winners' in the market and allocate resources more efficiently than the market can; an approach any socialist or totalitarian would be proud to support. There is very little organised effort to oppose these measures. I expect that people elsewhere will soon be able to look to Australia as a testing ground for all the worst case scenarios long discussed on cypherpunks. Now the State has announced it's intention to forcefully mandate authentication on the internet by imposing yet another taxpayer funded bureaucracy and to hell with the market solutions already provided at no cost to citizens. Shame on you Australia. (Are politicians genetically selected on their ability to make precisely the wrong decision in any given circumstance? Actually wrt authentication there is no problem to solve. Doing nothing was the best thing to do. Of course what this is really about is limiting entry to markets, corruption and fraud on the public.) http://www.theage.com.au/daily/971015/news/news7.html Push to tie up loose ends on Internet By GERVASE GREENE, Canberra Online commerce may exceed $6 billion by 2001, but it will be of little use if customers and businesses cannot identify each other on the Net. Federal Cabinet yesterday approved steps to create a national system for online authentication. The Government will establish a body to oversee all authentication systems. The Communications Minister, Senator Richard Alston, said this would significantly boost electronic commerce. "With predictions that electronic commerce in Australia will increase more than four-fold to $6.3 billion by 2001, the Government is well aware that development of trust and confidence by businesses and consumers in the reliability and security of online transactions will be critical to the development of the information economy," he said. A group of industry and government experts will report by March next year on possible functions and powers of the watchdog. This will include determining the technical standards required before an identification system obtains certification. Several corporations have marketed safety systems to exploit concern about the safety of online transactions. Sophisticated encryption will also be necessary before certification is granted. Civil liberty groups have called for anonymous transactions to be possible, while law enforcement bodies have sought access to records and transactions that would amount to an effective exemption from privacy obligations.