Car Insurance Rorts !

Most people dread opening the mail when the annual car registration bills arrive.  This year the Green slip insurance charge increased by 8%, adding another forty dollars to the annual cost.  It seems that compulsory third party motor insurance is at the apex of insurance fraud and this seems to run hand in hand with the way our legal system works.

A whole industry is milking that form of protection because it is an easy way to make money.  Smart operators know how to stage a minor car bingle that produces a cast of players who claim injury. Usually those injuries fall into the categories that are hard to medically fully diagnose, but which cause the sufferer difficulty in holding down a job.  A complicit sector of the legal profession specialises in shepherding these claims through the court and the judiciary seem benevolent because the money is coming from an insurance fund.

Some of these claims defy logic.   In one claimed crash the number of injured far exceeded the number of seats in the car, and lately claims for injuries to babies have spiked.  Damages sought seem fanciful, including psychological damage and " future lost earnings " - and often result in an award in excess of $ 100,000.

There are moves to tighten the system and place a cap on each individual injury to contain costs but that rewards the fraudsters and limits the compensation available to those who have suffered a truly debilitating injury.  Perhaps compensation for injuries that are medically obvious could be settled quickly - and those that have an element of doubt be subjected to a more intensive examination by a panel of specialists trained to detect fraud.  What attracts the present surge of dodgy claims is the sure knowledge that the odds of success is with the claimant !

There is another worrying car issue that concerns many - and that is car theft.  In so many news reports of car crashes the term " stolen vehicle " appears.  In this twenty-first century it seems that stealing a car is no more difficult than it was back in the middle of the twentieth century, and we have made amazing advances in technology since that time.

Many people will remember innovations that were claimed to produce an answer to car theft.  Remember when steering locks were introduced and once the key was withdrawn from the ignition the lock automatically prevented steering ?     Years later the car industry was forced to install what were called " immobilizers " to all new cars, which was said to make them unstealable !

The modern car is probably the most costly item the average person buys apart from his or her home, and yet even cars at the very top of the price range offer little deterrent to thieves.  There is little to stop a thief gaining access to the passenger compartment, and even in this electronic age starting the engine and driving away still meets that " gone in sixty seconds " criteria.

Theft prevention seems very low on the manufacturers list of priorities.  The modern car is said to be a computer on wheels and we have seen what is possible to prevent access to mobile phones by way of the fight between Apple and the FBI.  It is probably impossible to protect a car from the professional thief, but we certainly could devise a system that would thwart the average low life who seems the main perpetrator.

It seems that the car industry will only take theft seriously when car owners elevate it to one of the main reasons they arrive at a buying decision !

Tackling the " Indefensible " !

George Pell made it clear that he was " Not here to defend the Indefensible " when he fronted the Child Abuse Royal Commission from a televised hearing in Rome.  The man who was the Catholic church's most senior representative in Australia was about to be asked to explain why child sex abuse by that church's clergy had been covered up systematically, using protection of the church's good name as a shield.

This is not just an Australian problem, nor is it confined to just the Catholic church.  The difference is that across the world a lot of lay people are serving time in prisons and being reviled as a person because they have been put before a court - and punished, but for a " Man of God " to receive similar punishment is distressingly rare !

George Pell admits that the child abuse question has been a " catastrophe " for the church, but as it's Australian leader a lot of victims looked to him for redress - and found little sympathy.  The one thing that is abundantly clear is the lack of notification to the police whenever what is a serious crime is reported to church authorities.

Mostly the complaint was treated with disbelief, and in some cases the victims were punished.  If the offending priest was causing ripples of unease in the congregation, the church usually moved that man to a different city or town, but took no action to protect the children now exposed to his new pastoral care.  In a huge number of cases, such priests reoffended.

When members of the public took their complaint to the media the church either denied any wrongdoing or exerted pressure to cover it up.  In some cases, money was offered with strict confidentiality clauses imposed.  Pressure was applied to other Catholics to shield the church from criticism - and preserve it's good name rather that right a wrong !   The power of the church held sway over police and media and many claims went uninvestigated.

George Pell is between a rock and a hard place.  Ill health has resulted in his evidence being taken by video conference from Rome, but he is under oath - and the world is waiting on his answers.  At his age a certain amount of memory loss is to be expected but in some cases his evidence will involve still living people - and the secrecy of the confessional may apply.  There are many so angry with the Catholic church that whatever Pell says will be misconstrued and rejected.

The purpose of this Child Abuse Royal Commission is to deal with the past and put a line under it. The outcome - whatever that is - will not satisfy everybody and many lives have been irrevocably changed by their abuse by priests.   What is needed is clear dictum of how the matter of abuse by priests will be handled in the future - and so far that has not been forthcoming.

The church has the most open minded Pope in it's history.  He is clearly not a slave to past dogma. He responded to the arrival of the Ziva virus which can have the outcome of retarded children by softening the church's stance on contraception.    He hinted that in these circumstances using contraception would not be a " serious sin ".

What is needed is a clear an unequivocal command that in all and every instance where there is the suggestion of sex abuse by any priest or church worker, the matter will be instantly referred to the police - and no obstacles will be put in the way of that being carried out.

That is what those abused observing in Rome are hoping for !

A " Little Ripper " !

Many people marvel at the ever changing beach Lifesaver scene.  Back in the early half of the twentieth century the rescue vehicle was the surf boat.  It took a skilled crew to launch one of these massive wooden boats in rough surf and by today's standards they were slow to reach swimmers in distress.   They were replaced soon after the end of the second war war with what became known as " Rubber Duckies ", inflatable small boats powered by outboard engines.

Those old wooden surf boats are still used for display competitions and the Rubber Duckies have been joined by a more modern version surf ski, but the purpose of the beach Lifesaver remains the same - to keep the beach and the water safe by providing a rescue for those in trouble.

It was probably inevitable, given the prominence that drones have achieved in the military sphere. Modern technology has always been at the forefront of Lifesaver thinking and we are about to see a purpose built drone don the red and yellow Lifesaver uniform colours for evaluation as a rescue vehicle.

It has been dubbed the " Little Ripper " and once again it is an innovation that will shave precious minutes off rescue time. It is envisaged that these small drones will be able to drop a rescue package containing either a life jacket of an inflatable dingy to a swimmer dragged offshore by a rip. They convey the rescue scene from their onboard cameras back to their controller on the beach and they will even be effective at night because of their infra red vision.

One of these drones is about to undergo tests on Sydney's northern beaches.  It is battery powered and has a range of a hundred kilometres - and can operate for one hundred and fifty minutes on a full power charge.  They cost about $ 250,000 each and it is highly likely that in the near future they will become standard equipment within the surf Lifesaving movement.

The use of drones expands rescue capabilities exponentially.  They can deliver a defibrillator to a yachtsman suffering a heart attack offshore and they open up a whole new avenue of shark control. At present both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft fly regular patrols to spot shark movements but drones under the control of individual surf clubs can localize this shark watch and with it the ability of local clubs to keep watch on their home waters.  It can be very comforting to swimmers to know that an eye in the sky is constantly watching for sharks.

The shark menace has become more threatening recently.  Sharks have always posed a danger to those in the water but the number of attacks has been steadily increasing and there is conjecture about the reason.  Perhaps it it linked to global warming or possibly the more acidic nature of the seas, but a lot of money is being spent on shark defences.  Netting off beaches has increased and we now employ drum lines to catch and attach location devices to individual sharks so that their range and movements can be tracked.  "  Bubble nets " and devices thought to repel sharks have been suggested - or are on trial.

Obviously these " Little Rippers " extend the military options for shark control.  No doubt some people would like to see them dropping " depth charges " to destroy the shark menace.  That may be too extreme for a variety of reasons, but it is quite possible that the use of what the police term " flash bangs "  dropped from a drone to send sharks back out to sea might be acceptable.

A Ghost - from the Past !

One of Australia's crime mysteries revealed hauntingly new detail that makes us wonder what happened to the victim's body.  In 2001 English tourists Peter Falconio and Joanne Lee were driving the Stuart Highway in central Australia when another car driver signalled for them to pull over near Barrow Creek.  Fearing something was wrong with their car, they complied and this other driver shot Peter Falconio in the head and imprisoned Joanne Lee using gaffer tape and cable ties, putting a sack over her head.  While he was preoccupied she managed to escape and hid in the bush all night, finally emerging to flag down a passing road train in the morning.

The police discovered a pool of Falconio's blood on the highway and despite a huge search his body was never discovered.  A man named Bradley Murdock became the main suspect.  He was known to have a fascination with guns and after a long circumstantial case he was convicted and is now serving a twenty-eight year non parole sentence in a Darwin prison.   It is a remaining mystery of where Peter Falconio's body has been buried.

In 2010 a contractor was pumping out one of the roadside toilets dotted about the Stuart highway for the comfort of travellers.  These are known as " long drop dunnies " because they consist of a deep bore and when the suction hose jammed the operator discovered that the cause was a metal object wrapped in cloth.  It turned out to be a 1858 model of a Remington .44 pistol that was a favourite weapon in the American civil war of the 1860's.  These did not use modern cartridge ammunition but were served by a percussion cap and black powder.   The police commented that it was the type of weapon favoured by Australia's famous bandit, Ned Kelly.

It is unlikely that this weapon was used to kill Falconio.  The police think that a lighter .22 was used because the bullet would have lodged in his skull and the resulting blood would have pooled on the road.  The heavier weapon would have destroyed bone and brains and scattered this type of evidence widely.

It is believed that Bradley Murdock owned several pistols and none of these were recovered when he was arrested.   To complicate the issue, this roadside toilet was not constructed until well after this murder on the Stuart highway, making the police believe that Murdock - discovering that Joanne Lees had escaped - probably hid his cache of weapons somewhere in the vast surrounding desert.  It is possible that a prospector fossicking for minerals came across the weapon and decided to dispose of it by dropping it down a public toilet.   There is no record of it's serial number ever being registered in Australia.

Bradley Murdock has never confessed and still vigorously claims to be innocent.  The Falconio murder is now part of Australian folklore.  It was a grisly event carried out in what to travellers must seem to be an endless panorama of inhospitable desert.   Somewhere out there the body of Peter Falconio awaits discovery, but that is unlikely to happen unless sheer luck enters the picture.

The emergence of that antique pistol adds conjecture to the mystery !

Competition !

Investors got an unpleasant shock this week when Woolworths announced a trading loss of $972 million for the past six months.  Shares in the company briefly touched a twenty dollar low with the realization that dividends are expected to be lower and this is about half from it's former glory days.  This will be sad news for institutional investors who regarded Woolies as a virtual blue chip stock.

The main cause of this near billion dollar loss was the disastrous intrusion into the home hardware and do-it-yourself market with Woolworths " Masters Hardware chain ".   Arch rival Coles was the first to invade the turf of the smaller hardware stores with it's " Bunnings " warehouses and this was brilliantly successful.   Somehow the Woolworths operation failed to fire, resulting in a $ 1.89 billion writedown that did the damage to the groups bottom, line.

In the past, Coles and Woolworths have marched in lockstep.  They invaded the petrol market and established chains of petrol sites linked to discounts offered on presentation of grocery receipts. They are big operatives in the sale of liquor with both stand alone brand retail outlets and liquor stores beside grocery operations.  They are fast becoming a presence in the insurance field and it was only natural that Woolworths would counter the Bunnings hardware operation with a brand of it's own.

It has long been rumoured that all was not well within the ranks of senior management and now a new CEO has been appointed.  Coles has certainly established an edge with grocery sales and Woolworths share of this market has slipped by 1.4%.   There are plans to rejuvenate staff morale and improve store facilities and it is likely that Woolworths will engage in a price cutting promotion to win back customers from it's Coles and Aldi competitors.

This debacle certainly highlights the risks associated with diversification and that comes as electronic retailer Dick Smith finally closes it's doors.  This was a Woolworths acquisition that also failed to fire and was consequently sold to an investment company, which took it public.  It's failure seems to be more a matter of bad timing. The purchasers of electronic goods seem to have moved to either buying from the Internet or from the big brand discounters and these stand alone stores have lost their allure. They became saddled with debt and with a declining clientele.

The pundits will certainly closely examine the tactical reasons why Woolworths hardware operation failed.  It was an exact copy of the Bunnings stores with vast, modern warehouses stocked with the complete range of hardware merchandise and it was extensively advertised, but it never attracted the through-put of customers that Bunnings achieved.   Some may argue that because hardware is a more restrictive market than groceries, perhaps there was not room for two operatives to share that more limited market - and Bunnings had the advantage of being the first to offer their services.

It also looks like the grocery market is shaping up to be much more competitive.  Coles and Woolworths have had the advantage of multi stores and a broad coverage of major suburbs in cities and country towns, but Aldi is expanding and a new German discounter is about to enter the fray. At the same time, the independents have put together a mutual buying operation and have emerged as a competitor with the capacity to take on the grocery chains.   Profit margins for all are now under pressure and this will become unrelenting.

The one certainty from this Masters hardware debacle is that the concept of blindly following any diversification by another competitor has ended.   Shareholders will be very suspicious of expansion plans that involve expertise that may be lacking and management will need to do an indepth investigation of all possible aspects before putting any expansion project to the directors for approval.

Secrets !

The right to privacy is determined by whatever laws are in place in the country in which we live, but basically the tax office has the right to snoop into our bank accounts to see if we are paying the correct tax and most regimes require the servers who channel our phone and email traffic to reveal " who we called " and " who called us "  !

Now a classic case is wending it's way through the justice system in the United States to determine if our last line of secrecy is to be broken.   An American court has ordered Apple to open the security device attached to the iPhone of Syed Farook who gunned down fourteen people in the San Bernadino massacre.  It is quite possible that this may reveal his links to other terrorists and be of help to the FBI in preventing further atrocities.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple is between a rock and a hard place.  If he disobeys that order he may go to jail, but if he accedes he will have handed the government the means to access the contents of every iPhone on the planet.  Apple cleverly built into the iPhone a security system that wipes all internal data the moment ten unsuccessful attempts are made to access it by attempting an incorrect pin number.

Without that, the FBI can break the code by sheer brute force.  A super computer can bombard the phones security device with trillions of random numbers until it eventually cracks the code and opens access.  Apple - as the originator of that security device - is the body with the knowledge to get around it's setting, but in doing so it would create a key that creates what is termed a " back door " to break the security of all other iPhones.

That is the crux of this problem.  Up until now it has been assumed that we have the right to privacy in what we confide through our phone traffic.  That can range from the messages we send to a lover to the protected encryption of trade secrets in the commercial world.  The authorities make a compelling case for breaching this security when it comes to thwarting the deadly intent of terrorists, but once that access key exists, the use to which it may be put becomes an " unknown "  !

Basically, the experience of the world's espionage agencies reveals that all ciphers can ultimately be broken, but Apple has been fiendishly clever with this form of protection.   The interceptor has just ten chances - and then the treasure within is gone.  The memory has been wiped clean - and the opportunity has vanished !

Code breaking is usually something we think about as a war time activity.  The legendary Bletchley Park in Britain was instrumental in breaking the German Enigma code and Chester Nimitz's code-breakers in Hawaii were pivotal in Japan's defeat.  What has changed is that the technology that was once the prerogative of nation states is now in the hands of every man and woman who have chosen an iPhone as their personal means of communication.

If the US government wins and Tim Cook hands over that vital key to create a backdoor entry it is unlikely to matter to the average iPhone user, but it will matter greatly to people like investigative journalists and scientists working to create new drugs that have the potential to earn millions if they achieve patent protection.  What is at stake is the principle of personal privacy !

The Curse of " Passwords " !

The average computer user has to cope with the need to remember more than a dozen passwords to access companies they deal with on the Internet, and most of these are completely unnecessary. There is a definite need to establish recognition where financial matters are involved but that ubiquitous demand "enter login number and password " or  "enter email address and password " is now fast becoming a requirement for just about every entity that does business on the Internet.

Initially, many companies seemed to think that demanding this sort of information enabled them to compile a mailing list of email addresses to use to send Spam offers in the hope of enticing further business, but their customers email address is prominent whenever an email message arises.  The need for a password then becomes an impediment to further trade - if it becomes forgotten.

The Internet is fast becoming closed to what are best termed "casual shoppers "!   The moment you do business with an Internet company for the first time they insist on establishing a password and usually that is then a requirement before any further transactions are possible.  Just imagine if the big supermarket chains - Coles - Woolworths - Aldi -  required each customer to present their customer number and password before they could pass through the checkouts ?   Most have what they term a "Loyalty card ", but it's use is optional.

Shopping on the Internet should be equally available to the "casual shopper ".   It is hard to see where that "password "serves any useful purpose when access to the cashier requires the shopper to select a payment method and input the necessary card details to complete the purchase.  In many cases the need for a password actually deters customers from shopping on the Internet.

Typically, if someone buys a book for a friends birthday from an Internet bookstore and is required to establish a password it may be months or even years before they again make a purchase.  If that password has been forgotten or only partly remembered, it will entail the procedure of resetting a new password, usually by the receipt of a temporary code by email from the company involved.  That wastes time and can be an emotional drain on older people who lack advanced computer skills.

Password to block access seems to have established itself as a de facto requirement wherever trade by computer takes place, and it is very necessary where access to a persons finances are involved, but password are an unnecessary hindrance to trade in most other areas.  This is particularly so when the email address serves as the recognition point that should establish the caller as a former  customer and should a purchase take place exactly the same payment procedure will take place - as if access had been gained by way of password use.

It seems that the boffins who install computer programmes have a fixation with passwords and the retail world has not taken the trouble to think through the ramifications of demanding this form of recognition.  Just as the person who spends a dollar in any supermarket chain is free to do so without jumping through hoops, perhaps the Internet traders need to rethink what it needs to do to keep the customers happy.

 Good questions to ask are -  "What does this achieve ? " and  " Is it necessary ?