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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.

Dear United States Air Force (USAF): The Internet domain mildenhall.af.mil is an air force base in the UK. The domain mildenhall.com is a tourism website in Suffolk. Please send your classified documents to the first one, not the second.

08 March 2008 by Stilgherrian | No comments

Qantas “Gripe Reports” Debunked

27 March 2006 in Humour by Stilgherrian | No comments

I’m now sorry I published that link to funny Qantas Gripe Reports. It turns out they’re probably a fake that’s been circulating the Internet for ages, claiming to be variously from Qantas, the US Air Force and the UK’s Royal Air Force.