Australian Prime Minister runs private email server
Australia’s newly minted prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has admitted to running a private email server.
Turnbull took over from incumbent Tony Abbott last month after a party room vote, becoming Australia’s fifth prime minister in the span of five years.
Previously communications minister, a role in which he credits himself with having turned around Australia’s national broadband network, Turnbull has a long history with and deep enthusiasm for the technology industries. The new PM famously invested in OzEmail, which went on to become Australia’s dominant internet service provider in the dialup age, blogs, tweets, wears an Apple Watch and has admitted to use of self-destructing and metadata-free instant messaging service Wickr.
It’s therefore highly likely he’s aware of the kerfuffle surrounding Hilary Clinton’s personal email server.
Murdoch organ The Australian writes that Turnbull has used the server, and his personal domain malcolmturnbull.com.au, for personal and government business. The PM’s justification for doing so is that not all government business requires security-controlled email.
It’s unclear whether Turnbull has used his server for prime ministerial business.
After a bit of poking about in whois, it appears that malcolmturnbull.com.au uses CloudFlare, presumably for protection from denial of service attacks. Just where the mail server is hosted is therefore hard to determine, a small piece of security through obscurity that may be important given the obvious attractiveness of a popping a prime ministerial email server. Even CloudFlare protection may not, however, be enough to protect the PM from the CloudPiercer tool.
Turnbull’s office says using a private email server is not illegal, nor does it create complications under Australia’s Freedom of Information laws. The Reg expects that assertion to be tested sooner rather than later. ®
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Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/09/australian_prime_minister_runs_private_email_server/