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Weeky Wrap 84: Rosellas, cyberwar and lots of radio

26 January 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers the week from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 January 2012, posted way late because I’ve been incredibly busy.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 120, “Anonymous vs. Stratfor: the real issues”, being a nice long interview with Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst with IT-Harvest, a privately-held IT security research firm based in Detroit, Michigan. He also edits and publishes the newsletter Cyber Defence Weekly, and is author of the book Surviving Cyberwar.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. I thought things might start picking up this week, but apparently not.

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: Rosellas neat Wentworth Falls, photographed near Railway Parade on 17 January 2012.]

Talking cybersecurity on ABC Radio National Breakfast

12 January 2012 in Conversations, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

Actually, this message about cybersecurity being a serious emerging theme for 2012 seems to be getting more mainstream coverage than I thought it would. I was part of a cybersecurity panel discussion that was broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast this morning.

Also taking part were Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest in Detroit (I spoke with him about Anonymous and Stratfor on this week’s Patch Monday podcast), and Sean Kopelke, director of security and compliance solutions at Symantec Australia. The host was Jonathan Green, who is usually editor of ABC The Drum.

Over at the ABC’s website you can find the program audio and (perhaps, eventually) transcript. But I’m also including the audio below, just in case their systems fail.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:35 — 9.5MB)

This audio is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, of course. Even though we don’t get paid.

Weekly Wrap 69: Teeth and little productivity

03 October 2011 in Internet, Politics, Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — and a remarkably unproductive week it was. I’m even posting this summary late!

In part that’s because the Tooth and Shoulder Situation lingered, but also because I reacted poorly to some negative comments on some of my writing. I’ll write more about that soon.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 107, “Cyberwar: back to basics”. A conversation with Nigel Phair, a director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I had lunch at Wildfire Restaurant, Circular Quay, courtesy of Bass PR. The event was a security roundtable presented by some of their clients, including Websense, WatchGuard and VMinformer, and analysts Frost & Sullivan. I’ll write something about this in due course.

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: My first beer after nearly three weeks of illness and heavy-duty antibiotics. Much deserved. It's a Coopers Pale Ale at The Grand View Hotel, Wentworth Falls. This event actually happened the previous week, but I'm slow.]

No Canberra for cyberwar after all

18 September 2011 in Defence, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

As it happens, I didn’t end up going to the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference in Canberra this week. The conference sessions weren’t open to the media, and I decided that it wasn’t worth the trip if we’d have to rely on second-hand information.

That said, we did manage to get a recording of the over-dinner speech by David Irvine, the director-general of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which Liam Tung turned into the story “Insidious” cyber chaos too fast for ASIO. It also served as part of the inspiration for my story Yet another free pass for Aussie spooks.

Who wants to go to Canberra anyway?

However SC Magazine did sent Darren Pauli and John Hilvert, and their stories were:

Covering the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference

28 August 2011 in Defence, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

As soon as I arrive back from my trip to Kuala Lumpur on 13 September, I’m off to Canberra for the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference on 14 and 15 September. No I won’t be. See the comments.

I’m covering it for CSO Online, and for the moment I’m assuming that’ll be in the form of written material. I’d also like to cover it for the Patch Monday podcast, but I don’t think that’ll be possible due to the contractual arrangements.

The event itself runs for a day and a half. An afternoon of presentations followed by a day of roundtable discussions. I’m looking forward to it.

If there’s anything else happening in Canberra either side of this event, please let me know so I can plan to attend,

Patch Monday: Cybersecurity: past, present and future

09 August 2011 in Internet by Stilgherrian | No comments

Last week I had the very great pleasure of interviewing Dr Paul Nielsen, director and chief executive officer of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburg. This week’s Patch Monday podcast is that entire interview.

SEI is the parent organisation of CERT, the original computer emergency response team set up with US Department of Defense funding after the Morris Worm scared the bejesus out of everyone.

Before joining SEI, Dr Nielsen had a 32-year career in the military, reaching the rank of Major General. For a time he commanded the US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he managed an annual research and development budget of more than US$3 billion. We got on rather well.

For Patch Monday we talked about everything from worms and hacking to password management, the problems that local police face when prosecuting online crime, why Apple has so far had a better security experience than Android and dealing with security issues when the internet is populated with so many different kinds of devices.

We even talked about the evolution of hacking, and I’ve pulled out that part of the conversation for a story at CSO Online, LulzSec, WikiLeaks, Murdoch: hacking’s fourth wave.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Please let me know what you think. Comments below. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

Wanted: Your infosec war stories, anonymity preserved

30 June 2011 in Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

Information security has an image problem, I reckon. No-one apart from the infosec geeks themselves know what’s really involved in hacking or fighting hackers. So the public thinks it’s all like the bullshit in movies.

Like Hugh Jackman creating a virus in Swordfish, pictured.

Does anyone remember the episode of Spooks where the office lights went out when the hacker breached the firewall?

Let’s fix that.

Let’s hear more about the real war stories. OK, everything has always gotta be so goddam SEKRIT! No-one wants to admit to an embarrassing problem. But I reckon we can tell some of these stories while leaving out the identifying details.

We don’t need to reveal which bank nearly had its data centre pwned by a 14-year-old Ukrainian, nor which vendor’s product provided the bloody great hole he came through. But we can certainly talk about the processes, the time pressures and the paranoia.

This week I’ve started writing for a certain as-yet-undisclosed masthead. I reckon we could do regular stories from the front line of cybersecurity. I’ve been told to go for it. And I reckon it’d be fun to write in a stronger narrative style for a change.

If you are, or know of, someone that I should meet for a few drinks in a quiet place while I take notes, please contact me.

Weekly Wrap 38

02 March 2011 in Internet, Politics, Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This is being posted rather late, Wednesday rather than Sunday or so, because I was flat out at the Kickstart Forum. Must. Do. Better.

Podcasts

Articles

  • AFACT versus iiNet appeal decision resolves nothing, for Crikey. In summary, while the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft’s appeal against the Federal Court’s decision in favour of iiNet was lost, this’ll probably all end up being appealed again to the High Court.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I attended the NICTA Techfest and was provided with free food and drink.
  • Starting on Sunday I was attending the Kickstart Forum on the Gold Coast. My airfares and accommodation were paid for by the organisers, Media Connect. On Sunday evening security firm AVG bought me a drink. Sunday night’s dinner was sponsored by MyNetPhone.

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.

RSA Conference keynotes: a personal viewing guide

21 February 2011 in Defence, Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

All of the keynote sessions from the RSA Conference on information security are now online as video and audio. Here’s my personal suggestions for the ones to watch.

I didn’t see all of these keynotes. Sometimes there were 17 or 18 sessions running in parallel. I also skipped most of those that were obviously a vendor telling their story. Once I saw a couple of them, I was reminded that for so many IT folks the word “keynote” doesn’t mean something that provides insight any more, but is merely a synonym for “infomercial”.

It’s a shame that RSA hasn’t provided the media in an embeddable form. Or provided an obvious way to link to each keynote directly. Or given the keynote titles. Or told you which ones are panel discussions rather than single-person presentations.

But here’s what I reckon you should watch.

  • Wednesday’s panel led by James Lewis, “Cyberwar, Cybersecurity, and the Challenges Ahead”, with former NSA head Mike McConnell, former US Secretary of Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff and security guru Bruce Schneier.
  • The Cryptographers Panel with Dickie George, Whitfield Diffie, Adi Shamir, Martin Hellman and Ronald Rivest. I didn’t see this one myself, but from the comments on Twitter it was a must-see tour through the history of cryptography and an informed look into the future.
  • The presentations by US Deputy Secretary of Defence William Lynn and the head of US Cyber Command General Keith Alexander. Lynn’s presentation was a little dry but set out US political views. Alexander was witty and expanded on Lynn’s comments into the practical realm.
  • Microsoft’s Scott Charney’s presentation of their “Collaborative Defence” strategy, important because this is the worldview that Microsoft is encouraging us to adopt.
  • Michio Kaku, physicist and best-selling author, on “The Next 20 Years: Interacting with Computers, Telecommunication and AI in the Future”. I didn’t see this one, but I’ve seen Kaku on The Colbert Report and he’s a damn good presenter.
  • Michael Capuzzo, author of The Murder Room, on forensic pathology. Again, I didn’t catch this one, but was told it was fascinating.
  • Bill Clinton’s “Embracing our Common Humanity”. My understanding — although I haven’t checked yet — is that this is essentially the same speech that he gave at Dreamforce in December. That said, he’s a persuasive speaker and it’s worth a listen.

That’s my personal selection, based on what I saw or what I heard about? What are your selections?

[Photo: James Lewis' keynote panel, "Cyberwar, Cybersecurity, and the Challenges Ahead". From left to right: former NSA head Mike McConnell; former US Secretary of Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff; and security guru Bruce Schneier. Disclosure: I travelled to San Francisco to attend the RSA Conference as a guest of Microsoft.]

Weekly Wrap 37

20 February 2011 in Internet, Politics, Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This time I’m making up for the recent slow weeks with a whole bunch of material from the RSA Conference on information security.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 76, “The end of the open internet?” “I think the age of the deeply competitive internet is over,” says author and telecommunications lawyer, Tim Wu. “The next five years is going to be a story of the big four or big five.” This podcast contains the complete interview with the author of The Master Switch: The rise and fall of information empires, sections of which were quoted in the stories below.
  • The next episode of Patch Monday is all about the RSA Conference, cyberwar, and Microsoft’s call for what referring to as “collective defence”. I’ve already completed that episode, and you’ll be able to grab it late Monday morning Sydney time over at the Patch Monday podcast stream.

Articles

Corporate Largesse

  • My trip to San Francisco for the RSA Conference was paid for by Microsoft.

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: Cincinnati nerdcore act Dual Core performing at the Electronic Frontiers Foundation’s 21st birthday party in San Francisco on 16 February 2011.]

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