Winning the phishing war : a strategy for Australia

Phishing, a form of on-line identity theft, is a major problem worldwide, accounting for more than $7.5 Billion in losses in the US alone between 2005 and 2008. Australia was the first country to be targeted by Internet bank phishing in 2003 and continues to have a significant problem in this area. The major cyber crime groups responsible for phishing are based in Eastern Europe. They operate with a large degree of freedom due to the inherent difficulties in cross border law enforcement and the current situation in Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and the Ukraine. They employ highly sophisticated and efficient technical tools to compromise victims and subvert bank authentication systems. However because it is difficult for them to repatriate the fraudulently obtained funds directly they employ Internet money mules in Australia to transfer the money via Western Union or Money gram. It is proposed a strategy, which firstly places more focus by Australian law enforcement upon transactions via Western Union and Money gram to detect this money laundering, would significantly impact the success of the Phishing attack model. This combined with a technical monitoring of Trojan technology and education of potential Internet money mules to avoid being duped would provide a winning strategy for the war on phishing for Australia.

A framework for identifying associations in digital evidence using metadata

Digital forensics concerns the analysis of electronic artifacts to reconstruct events such as cyber crimes. This research produced a framework to support forensic analyses by identifying associations in digital evidence using metadata. It showed that metadata based associations can help uncover the inherent relationships between heterogeneous digital artifacts thereby aiding reconstruction of past events by identifying artifact dependencies and time sequencing. It also showed that metadata association based analysis is amenable to automation by virtue of the ubiquitous nature of metadata across forensic disk images, files, system and application logs and network packet captures. The results prove that metadata based associations can be used to extract meaningful relationships between digital artifacts, thus potentially benefiting real-life forensics investigations.

A dynamic Web agent for verifying the security and integrity of a Web site's contents

To harness safe operation of Web-based systems in Web environments, we propose an SSPA (Server-based SHA-1 Page-digest Algorithm) to verify the integrity of Web contents before the server issues an HTTP response to a user request. In addition to standard security measures, our Java implementation of the SSPA, which is called the Dynamic Security Surveillance Agent (DSSA), provides further security in terms of content integrity to Web-based systems. Its function is to prevent the display of Web contents that have been altered through the malicious acts of attackers and intruders on client machines. This is to protect the reputation of organisations from cyber-attacks and to ensure the safe operation of Web systems by dynamically monitoring the integrity of a Web site's content on demand. We discuss our findings in terms of the applicability and practicality of the proposed system. We also discuss its time metrics, specifically in relation to its computational overhead at the Web server, as well as the overall latency from the clients' point of view, using different Internet access methods. The SSPA, our DSSA implementation, some experimental results and related work are all discussed

Postmodern Theory and the Choreography of Michael Clark

This study addresses two interrelated questions: Can postmodern ‘theory’ illuminate an understanding of Michael Clark’s work? and, a sub-question, In which ways, if at all, does Clark’s work demonstrate a postmodern sensibility? Chapter one, the introduction to this study, provides a ‘portrait’ of postmodernism, that is, it addresses the question What is postmodernism? Chapter two is a biography of Michael Clark. The seminal sections to this study, however, are chapters three and four. Here the author blends a discussion of a) subject matter, treatment and meanings in Clark’s choreography, b) journalistic criticisms of those features of his work, and c) postmodern theory. The outcome of these chapters is to demonstrate that Clark’s works do indeed require re-interpretation and re-evaluation, and to illustrate how these factors might be achieved.

Case note : Keegan v Sussan Corporation (Aust) Pty Ltd

A recent decision of the Queensland Supreme Court highlights that merely having a policy in a workplace is not sufficient in itself – the policy must be implemented and followed if an employer wishes to establish that it is not in breach of its duty of care owed to employees. In Keegan v Sussan Corporation (Aust) Pty Ltd an employee successfully sued in negligence for her psychiatric injury caused by her employer’s failure to follow its bullying and harassment policy.

Governing virtual worlds : to what extent is it possible to empower players and preserve their rights in virtual worlds, and what is the best method of doing so?

In this paper the author considers the possibilities for establishing democratic governance in virtual worlds. He looks at the freedoms currently available to players in “Second Life”, contrasting these to those established in Raph Koster’s “A Declaration of the Rights of Avatars”, and assess whether some restrictions are more necessary in game spaces than social spaces. The author looks at the early implementations of self-governance in online spaces, and consider what lessons can be taken from these, investigating what a contemporary democratic space looks like, in the form of “A Tale in the Desert”, and finally considers how else we may think of giving players more rights in these developing social spaces.

Degree of value alignment : a grounded theory of rural nurse resignations

INTRODUCTION: The shortage of nurses willing to work in rural Australian healthcare settings continues to worsen. Australian rural areas have a lower retention rate of nurses than metropolitan counterparts, with more remote communities experiencing an even higher turnover of nursing staff. When retention rates are lower, patient outcomes are known to be poorer. This article reports a study that sought to explore the reasons why registered nurses resign from rural hospitals in the state of New South Wales, Australia. METHODS: Using grounded theory methods, this study explored the reasons why registered nurses resigned from New South Wales rural hospitals. Data were collected from 12 participants using semi-structured interviews; each participant was a registered nurse who had resigned from a rural hospital. Nurses who had resigned due to retirement, relocation or maternity leave were excluded. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and imported into NVivo software. The constant comparative method of data collection and analysis was followed until a core category emerged. RESULTS: Nurses resigned from rural hospitals when their personal value of how nursing should occur conflicted with the hospital's organisational values driving the practice of nursing. These conflicting values led to a change in the degree of value alignment between the nurse and hospital. The degree of value alignment occurred in three dynamic stages that nurses moved through prior to resigning. The first stage, sharing values, was a time when a nurse and a hospital shared similar values. The second stage was conceding values where, due to perceived changes in a hospital's values, a nurse felt that patient care became compromised and this led to a divergence of values. The final stage was resigning, a stage where a nurse 'gave up' as they felt that their professional integrity was severely compromised. The findings revealed that when a nurse and organisational values were not aligned, conflict was created for a nurse about how they could perform nursing that aligned with their internalised professional values and integrity. Resignation occurred when nurses were unable to realign their personal values to changed organisational values - the organisational values changed due to rural area health service restructures, centralisation of budgets and resources, cumbersome hierarchies and management structures that inhibited communication and decision making, out-dated and ineffective operating systems, insufficient and inexperienced staff, bullying, and a lack of connectedness and shared vision. CONCLUSIONS: To fully comprehend rural nurse resignations, this study identified three stages that nurses move through prior to resignation. Effective retention strategies for the nursing workforce should address contributors to a decrease in value alignment and work towards encouraging the coalescence of nurses' and hospitals' values. It is imperative that strategies enable nurses to provide high quality patient care and promote a sense of connectedness and a shared vision between nurse and hospital. Senior managers need to have clear ways to articulate and imbue organisational values and be explicit in how these values accommodate nurses' values. Ward-level nurse managers have a significant responsibility to ensure that a hospital's values (both explicit and implicit) are incorporated into ward culture.

OHS inspectors and psychosocial risk factors: Evidence from Australia

Legislation giving prominence to psychosocial risk factors at work has changed the role of government occupational health and safety (OHS) inspectors in many countries. Yet little is known about how inspectorates have responded to these changes. Between 2003 and 2007 an Australian study was undertaken on OHS standards, entailing detailed documentary analysis, interviews with 36 inspectorate managers and 89 inspectors, and observations made when researchers accompanied inspectors on 120 typical workplace visits. Our study found that general duty provisions in OHS legislation clearly incorporated psychosocial hazards and inspectorates had introduced guidance material, pursued campaigns and increased interventions in this area. However, the regulatory framework remained narrow (focused on bullying/harassment, occupational violence and work stress) and workplace visits revealed psychosocial hazards as a marginal area of inspectorate activity. These findings were reinforced in interviews. While aware of psychosocial hazards inspectors often saw the issue as problematic due to limited training, resourcing constraints, deficiencies in regulation and fears of victimisation amongst workers. In order to address these problems a number of changes are required that recognize the distinctiveness of psychosocial hazards including their ‘invisibility’. Notable here are revisions to regulation (both general duty provisions and specific codes), the development of comprehensive guidance and assessment tools to be used by inspectors, greater use of procedural enforcement, and enhanced inspectorate resourcing and training. There is also a need to recognize complex inter-linkages between psychosocial hazards and the industrial relations context.

Key Concepts in Crime and Society

This book is an introduction to key issues in the area of crime as it connects to society. The book is divided into three parts: Understanding Crime and Criminality: introduces topics such as the social construction of crime and deviance, social control, the fear of crime, poverty and exclusion, white collar crime, victims of crime, race/gender and crime. Types of Crime and Criminality: explores examples including human trafficking, sex work, drug crime, environmental crime, cyber crime, war crime, terrorism, and interpersonal violence. Responses to Crime: looks at areas such as crime and the media, policing, moral panics, deterrence, prisons and rehabilitation.

'Women on a Wiki’ : the role of interactive websites in reflective learning practices for undergraduate women’s health students

Aim Our pedagogical research addressed the following research questions: 1) Can shared ‘cyber spaces’, such as a ‘wiki’, be occupied by undergraduate women’s health students to improve their critical thinking skills? 2) What are the learning processes via which this occurs? 3) What are the implications of this assessment trial for achieving learning objectives and outcomes in future public health undergraduate courses? Methods The students contributed written, critical reflections (approximately 250 words) to the Wiki each week following the lecture. Students reflected on a range of topics including the portrayal of women in the media, femininity, gender inequality, child bearing and rearing, domestic violence, mental health, Indigenous women, older women, and LGBTIQ communities. Their entries were anonymous, but visible to their peers. Each wiki entry contained a ‘discussion tab’ wherein online conversations were initiated. We used a social constructivist approach to grounded theory to analyse the 480 entries posted over the semester. (http://pub336womenshealth.wikispaces.com/) Results The social constructivist approach initiated by Vygotsky (1978) and further developed by Jonasson (1994) was used to analyse the students’ contributions in relation to four key thematic outcomes including: 1) Complexities in representations across contexts; 2) Critical evaluation in real world scenarios; 3) Reflective practice based on experience, and; 4) Collaborative co-construction of knowledge. Both text and image/visual contributions are provided as examples within each of these learning processes. A theoretical model depicting the interactive learning processes that occurred via discussion of the textual and visual stimulus is presented.

Adolescent peer aggression and its association with mental health and substance use in an Australian cohort

Prospective longitudinal birth cohort data was used to examine the association between peer aggression at 14 years and mental health and substance use at 17 years. A sample of 1590 participants from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) study were divided into mutually exclusive categories (victims, perpetrators, victim-perpetrators and uninvolved). Involvement in any type of peer aggression as a victim (10.1%), perpetrator (21.4%), or a victim-perpetrator (8.7%) was reported by 40.2% of participants. After adjusting for confounding factors, those who were a victim of peer aggression had increased odds of later depression and internalising symptoms whilst perpetrators of peer aggression were found to be at increased risk of depression and harmful alcohol use. Victim-perpetrators of peer aggression were more likely to have externalising behaviours at 17 years. These results show an independent temporal relationship between peer aggression and later mental health and substance use problems in adolescence.

How to tackle cybercrime before people even know they're a victim

An estimated A$75,000 is lost by Australians everyday to online fraud, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Given that this is based on reported crime, the real figure is likely to be much higher. It is well known that fraud, particularly online fraud, has a very low reporting rate. This also doesn’t even begin to encompass non-financial costs to victims. The real cost is likely to be much, much higher. There are many challenges to policing this type of crime, and victims who send money to overseas jurisdictions make it even harder, as does the likelihood of offenders creating false identities or simply stealing legitimate ones. But despite these challenges police have started to do something to prevent the impact and losses of online fraud. By accessing financial intelligence, police are able to identify individuals who are sending money to known high-risk countries for fraud. They then notify these people with their suspicions that they may be involved in fraud. In many cases the people don’t even know they may be victims or involved in online fraud.