December 2011

You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2011.

The 9pm Edict #17

31 December 2011 in The 9pm Edict by Stilgherrian | No comments

Tonight we’re doing what every other media outlet does. A look back at the year. The big stories. From earthquakes and cyclones to royal weddings and the descent of TV stars into madness. All through the eyes of the media and, since it’s 2011, through the eyes of fucking Twitter.

In this episode you’ll hear what I think about the Sydney Morning Herald’s review of 2011 and Charlie Brooker and his drama series Black Mirror.

I also refer to Charlie Brooker’s glorious explanation of the grammar of a TV news story. Watch it.

And as I mentioned on Twitter, this episode has been recorded in bursts of one-take recordings at the C Bar, also known as the Chamberlain Hotel in Haymarket, Sydney. The arseholes closed early. I refer to that, and I shall follow it up next episode.

You can listen below. But if you want all of the episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:08 — 11.8MB)

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

Talking Stratfor hack on Perth radio 6PR

31 December 2011 in Conversations, Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

So there I was, having a quiet drink late on Friday night, chatting on Twitter with Crikey’s Bernard Keane and journalist Gabriella Lahti about the Stratfor hack, when who should poke his head over the parapet but Jason Jordan, who was about to present 6PR’s Nightline…

Long story short, less than half an hour later I’m live on air chatting about the whole thing, including who Anonymous are and what their motives might be, and what might happen next.

Thanks to technical difficulties my end I couldn’t record 6PR’s audio stream, and there wasn’t time to sort that out before we went live. So this audio was recorded my end, and that means I sound just fine on my quality microphone and the radio station is at the other end of the phone.

I’ve left in a bit of my conversation with the producer before and after so you can experience The Magic of Radio. Technically that’s a breach of the NSW Surveillance Devices Act 2007 because I didn’t seek permission first but, like, shut up.

Yes, it really was just two seconds from me getting ready to being live on air.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:42 — 10.5MB)

The audio is ©2011 Radio 6PR Perth Pty Ltd, but since they don’t archive these interviews I reckon it’s fair enough putting it here provided you just listen to it and I link back to 6PR and encourage you to listen. If you’re in Perth. Or if you want to stream it.

Talking Stratfor hack on ABC TV’s “7.30”

30 December 2011 in Conversations, Internet, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | 7 comments

I was interviewed for ABC TV’s current affairs program 7.30 yesterday about Anonymous’ hack of Stratfor. The story was Hack attack reveals Australians’ credit card details.

Interestingly, they chose to focus on the “liberation” of the credit card numbers and how it affected the Australian victims.

They didn’t use any of the material we recorded on who the various victims might be, what the still-to-come publication of some 2.7 million of Stratfor’s internal emails might reveal, and the effect that could have on both Stratfor and the individuals who’ve been feeding them information.

Indeed, this article by Barrett Brown makes it clear that those emails and other internal documents were the real target, not the credit card numbers. Anonymous is trying to give the impression that there’s some powerful stuff in there, but we’ll see.

I guess when you’ve only got six minutes and have to start with “Who is Anonymous?” and “Who is Stratfor?” then there’s not really enough time to get to “This is really a follow-up to Anonymous’ hack of HBGary Federal earlier in the year.”

Careful viewers will notice that reporter Sara Everingham described me as someone who “goes by the name Stilgherrian”, which is a bit of an oops but something that seemed to cause more distress to my Twitter followers than me.

Since some people have asked, I might as well tell you that the interview was shot in a spare office at the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters — rather different from the outdoor shot the last time I was on 7.30.

And despite the story being written and voiced by Sara Everingham, I was actually interviewed by Sarah Dingle. Ah, the Magic of Television!

The video in the story is Flash, so it won’t work on your iDevice. But there’s also an MP4 version of the video.

Talking Stratfor hack and more on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide

29 December 2011 in Conversations, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

I was scheduled to talk about the year 2011 in technology on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide this morning, but with the news that Malcolm Turnbull’s credit card details were exposed in the Stratfor hack that too was on the agenda.

The original plan was to cover the kinds of issues raised in my 2011 tech wrap for Crikey and the Patch Monday podcast episodes 2011: the year in security and 2011: IT’s year of consolidation.

We also covered computer support for the electoral roll and computerised voting, since Senator Cory Bernardi had raised the subject of people casting multiple votes and how only a handful of alleged cases had been prosecuted.

While I supported the idea of an online electoral roll, I spoke against online voting. I’ve written about that before at ABC’s The Drum, Electronic voting a threat to democracy.

The regular presenters were on holidays, so the host was William Goodings.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:15 — 5.8MB)

[Update 0910: Link added to article on electronic voting.]

The 9pm Edict #16

27 December 2011 in The 9pm Edict by Stilgherrian | No comments

Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivers the world’s most tedious Christmas Message. A motorists organisation wants the world to be more predictable, just like it used to be. And Twitter wins the hearts and minds of the world’s media, the puppets.

In this episode you’ll hear what I think about the Prime Minister’s Christmas Message, which doesn’t hold a candle to my own Christmas Message from 2008, let alone the Queen’s Christmas Messages, such as Her Majesty’s 50th such message in 2007; the NRMA’s claim that petrol pricing is too hard to predict and their call for an inquiry; the fact, or supposed fact, that Twitter gets more news mentions than Facebook, even though the latter is much, much bigger; and a really, really stupid tweet from Shahira Abouellail, whose blog is called fazerofzanight.

You can listen below. But if you want all of the episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:28 — 13.7MB)

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission. Mark Zuckerberg news item from NewsyTech.]

Samsung’s website survey arsehattery

27 December 2011 in Internet, Marketing by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

This week’s Golden Cow Award for Corporate Arsehattery goes to Samsung for this piece of meaningless bullshit in a survey asking about my experience using their website.

Now as background, I was after the technical specifications of the Samsung Slate Series 7 tablet PC, but couldn’t find them. There was no section or link labelled “specifications”. That’s a fail, I reckon. So I decided I would do the survey.

Like all such surveys, it asked the kind of questions that market research companies think are important, such as how soon I was thinking of buying, what competing brands I was looking at, and my demographic details. But this question caused me, literally, to laugh out loud.

Thinking of today’s website experience, how successful has the Samsung website been in conveying the following concepts of the Samsung brand?

And the concepts listed? Fresh, clean, inspiring, unique, interesting, elegant, contemporary, intelligent, engaging, bright, simple, relevant, upbeat, forward-thinking, charismatic, chic, unexpected, visionary.

WTF? Who the heck thinks in those terms when visiting a website? “Oh, I couldn’t find the technical specifications. This website just doesn’t convey the charismatic or chic brand values.”

I’d like to find whoever was responsible for this idiocy and ask them to define, in concrete web development terms, the three key differences between a brand experience that’s “fresh” rather than “clean” or “simple”.

And then I’d like to bury them in a ditch.

Fine posts for 2011

26 December 2011 in Blogging, Human Nature, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

Since the list of most popular posts for 2011 was pretty disappointing, just like the previous year, here’s my personal selection of seven more timeless posts for this year. Happy reading!

As usual, this does not include the material I wrote elsewhere, for Crikey, ZDNet Australia, ABC The Drum, Technology Spectator, CSO Online and the rest. That’s all listed on my Media Output page.

Right, Google, you stupid cunts, this is simply not on! This was my first critique of the Google+ Real Names Policy, and still the most widely read.
LinkedIn’s inadequate response to privacy stupidity, which was when they opened up people’s profiles for use in third-party advertising without asking first.
Twitter: a guide for busy paranoids, adapted from a piece I wrote for the NSW Local Government Web Network.
Tweeting your way out of Paranoia, a video of the presentation I did for the NSW LGWN conference. Yes, it’s related to the previous item.
50 to 50 #9: The Space Age, and the companion piece…
50 to 50 #9A: The Real Space Age. They’re about my personal experience of the Space Age.
Goodbye, Artemis, a very personal experience.

You might also like to check out my personal favourites from 2010, 2009 and 2008.

[Update 27 December 2011: Minor corrections to text and HTML markup.]

Weekly Wrap 81: Twitter, chaos and Christmas cheer

24 December 2011 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Part of me wants to make a profound comment there but, you know, Christmas.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 119, “2011: IT’s year of consolidation”. A panel discussion with broadcaster, columnist and author Paul Wallbank and open source developer and strategist Jeff Waugh. This was the final episode for 2011. The next one will appear on Monday 9 January 2012.

Articles

Hactivism goes mobile with Android.Arspam, CSO, 20 December 2011.
Still mid-game in the digital year that was, Crikey, 21 December 2011.
Permission-greedy apps not always rogue or lazy, CSO, 22 December 2011.
Facebook for banking? No thanks!, Technology Spectator, 23 December 2011.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday I was interviewed on ABC 774 Melbourne about Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal’s $300 million investment in Twitter.

Corporate Largesse

On Monday night I enjoyed food and drinks at the Hilton Hotel Sydney’s Executive Lounge thanks to Dave Hall, who has membership.
On Tuesday night I had a little pizza and a rather large number of gin and tonics thanks to infosec firm Black Swan Consulting.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: The Western Distributor, Darling Harbour, photographed from the Parkroyal Darling Harbour.]

Visiting Ballarat for Linux.conf.au 2012

22 December 2011 in Internet, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | No comments

I’m heading to Ballarat, Victoria, on 16 January 2012 to cover Linux.conf.au for TechRepublic and ZDNet Australia.

While in many ways it’s a standard conference coverage gig, it’ll be particularly interesting for a few reasons.

I’ll get to interview some developers with unusual experiences such as Jacob Appelbaum, developer of The TOR Project, to name just one. Indeed, I’m hoping he’ll be a guest for the Patch Monday podcast.
We’re toying with the idea of doing a daily podcast. That’d be a fun challenge, if exhausting.
I’ll end up giving myself a crash updater course on Linux. While I’ve been a Linux systems administrator for years, and even did some less-common stuff such as custom installer CDs, I haven’t really done any hands-on work for two or three years. Geekery shall ensue.
I haven’t been to Ballarat in ages, and it’s a lovely little town.

I’ll post further details of my plans for the trip and our plans for the coverage as we get closer to the date.

At this stage it looks like I’ll arrive in Ballarat on Monday 16 January and depart on Saturday 21 January. My intention is to bracket the event with other things in Melbourne. If you know of anything that you think I should know about, please tell me!

« Older entries