8. CAPTCHAs

Hi, I am Greg and I want to grumble about CAPTCHA. You may not recognise the name, but it stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Now that name alone should tell you something of the complexity of the beast, but in less formal language, CAPTCHAs are those bloody annoying text and number patterns that you have to enter on an increasing number of websites before you can post online messages or sign up to services.

I’m sorry, maybe my brain is not abstract enough, but sometimes I just can’t see letters in the patterns, or the letters are so distorted that they could be any of 3 or 4 different ones. So I sit there reloading the screen until I get a set of letters and numbers that I can actually read. And I am told that the audio versions are no less confusing.

Now given that I have spent the last seven weeks grumbling about elections and matters of national importance, you might think that issues with CAPTCHA are a bit trivial. Well, if you have a vision impairment or are using one of the various programs designed to assist you to read online – and therefore to connect to the digital world, guess what, the very secure CAPTCHA system just blocked your participation in that world. Ditto if you have a learning disability like dyslexia. You won’t be able to sign up to basic services like gmail and skype, comment on that article that everyone else is talking about or do that business transaction online. Ah, I think that’s called discrimination!

And what does it say when a device that is designed to tell humans from non-humans, excludes someone with a vision or learning disability from the category of “human”. Would we accept any real person saying that someone with a disability was not human?

It is not even clear that CAPTCHA is needed for security purposes. I am sure it wasn’t needed (but it was there) on my online inquiry last week about whether a particular caravan park had a vacancy at the end of the year. Even on more serious transactions, there are several alternative methods of proving web users are human rather than spamming computers. Some of these also have drawbacks, but as a spam-busting device, the discriminatory CAPTCHAs are not necessarily “bot-proof” and can be defeated by equally smart non-humans.

Now it is not just me grumbling about CAPTCHA. The leading telecommunications consumer voice, ACCAN, which is the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network – has begun a campaign to “kill CAPTCHA”. They are calling on organisations with websites using CAPTCHAs to phase out the skewed and confusing text devices. There is also an online petition which asks for their phase out. Sound good to me.

Let’s kill CAPTCHA – but until then, I am Greg and I am grumbling. 

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-8/ 

First Broadcast: 24 September 2013

7. The Cabinet

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about Tony Abbott’s new cabinet. Yes, I know it is predictable grumble, but I am not actually going to grumble about the embarrassment of having only one woman in Cabinet. Nor am I going to grumble about the stream of commentary and Twitter outrage at the notion of quotas or some mechanism to promote women. Apparently these are an attack on merit and individual rights, as if there are no social processes and power structures which disadvantage women or define merit in a gendered way. But I will leave that alone.

I am not even going to grumble about the fact that the Ministry is never appointed simply on merit as there is always a juggling of positions and balancing of numbers, between factions in the Labor Party or party wings in the Coalition, and between country and city representatives, between members of the Liberal and National parties, and between members of the upper and lower houses. If I did that, I would have to wonder why gender balance could not be included in that balancing process.

Alternatively I suppose, I could just accept that this was in fact a merits-based process and that there are just far fewer women than men with the skills to be a Cabinet Minister – but then I would have to spend my weekends painting picket fences and tinkering with the FJ Holden in the driveway. So I won’t go there either.

What I really want to grumble about is that in the lead up to the election, the Coalition’s Policy for Disability and Carers promised that there would be a “Minister for Disabilities and Carers”. Now apart from the problem of the name focussing on the disability and not the actual person living with a disability, I searched the new Ministry and there is no Minister for Disabilities and Carers. There is a someone with responsibility for the NDIS (Mitch Fifield, the Assistant Minister for Social Services), but that is not the same thing. I checked the fine print of the original policy statement, and it says that, and I quote “The Coaltion will put all policy and programmes for employment of people with disability under the Minister for Disabilities and Carers”. This is clearly beyond the NDIS (which thankfully will return to that name rather than the ill-fated Disability Care), but the title of the proposed minister is capitalised, suggesting a separate Minister – not subsuming the position in a broader portfolio.

Personally I am happy to be rid of portfolios where we had the Minister for A,B,C,D, E, and F, but having a dedicated voice at the cabinet table is important. And this Cabinet has no singular voice for disabilities – or for mental health for that matter as it is subsumed into health. But unless this is the first broken promise of the new government, we still wait for the appointment of a Minister for People with Disabilities and Carers – which would be a great recognition of the importance of the issues and of people living with disabilities. And who knows, we could even have a woman appointed as Minister.

But until then, I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-7/
First Broadcast: 17 September 2013 

4. Transportism

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about transportism.

Transportism is a little-understood problem in our society. Just as racism is discrimination on the basis of race, and sexism is discrimination of the basis of sex, so transportism is discrimination and disadvantage on the basis of one’s mode of transport.

Transport is important because it allows us to participate fully in society. Lack of access to transport or discrimination on the basis of transport means we can’t fully participate

If you drive a car, you have to have a licence, but it does not get checked every time you get in car. But when I catch the train home from work, I have to show my ticket to get on to the platform, walk 50 metres and show the ticket again when I get on the train, and then have a guard come by 5 minutes later to check that I have a ticket. That is petty transportism.

When I combine a bike and train trip home, only to get to the station to find that I can’t get home because “buses have replaced trains”, that is transportism. And when there is just no public transport available in many regional areas, or when the city transit system is built around office commuting and barely provides a service outside of that, that is transportism as people are disadvantaged because they rely on a particular form of transport.

Every time someone in a wheelchair can’t get into a building, or has to wait way, way longer than anyone else for a taxi because there are too few access cabs, that is transportism. People are being disadvantaged because their mode of transport is a wheelchair rather than by foot.

And then there is transportism in our immigration policy. Unfortunately in our world many people are forced to flee violence, dictatorial governments, religious intolerance or persecution. If they can fly to Australia they may ask for asylum and be treated with some respect and be offered support and protection. But if they arrive by boat, they will get shipped off to a tropical prison never to return to Australia. Their trauma, their claim for asylum and their need for protection may be equally as valid as someone arriving by plane, but different rules apply simply because they arrive by boat. They suffer discrimination and vilification and are denied equal protection under the law simply because of their mode of transport. That is transportism. I mean, really, what else could it be?

I am Greg, and I am grumbling.


This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-4/
First Broadcast: 27 August 2013