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Patch Monday: WAN optimisation and the Facebook patent

11 March 2010 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | No comments

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 33

The perceived speed of your internet connection isn’t just about raw bandwidth. The National Broadband Network won’t automatically speed up everything.

In this week’s Patch Monday podcast, Steve Dixon from Riverbed Technology explains how inefficiencies in TCP/IP network protocols mean that latency can be as much of a problem as bandwidth. “WAN optimisation”, which is something Riverbed and others sell, can help.

And Kimberlee Weatherall provides some perspective on the controversial Facebook “news feed” patent for “Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network” into perspective. She teaches intellectual property law at the University of Queensland.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia — where you’ll see some of the comments already posted — or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Besides, you’ll get it faster than waiting for me to post it here.

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

Patch Monday: Is cloud right for your business?

05 March 2010 in Internet, Language, Marketing by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

[Oops. Not only was the Patch Monday podcast filed late, so it kinda became Patch Tuesday, I forgot to post it here. Well, that's fixed now.]

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 32

The key IT buzzwords for 2010 seem to be “cloud computing” and “virtualisation”, but is cloud really right for your business?

Will it provide a cheaper, more flexible option? Or can companies not afford to store data and run applications outside their business?

In a program recorded at the annual Kickstart Forum on IT trends, I spoke with Rosemary Stark, Microsoft Australia product manager for Windows Server and infrastructure solutions and Craig Deveson, CEO of Devnet, one of Google’s enterprise and web development partners.

Meanwhile, Michael Rich, managing director of Attaché Software, explains why he thinks IT vendors have got it wrong by attempting to sell products instead of providing business value.

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. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

Patch Monday: Proving your identity online

22 February 2010 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 31

“Please log in with your Facebook ID”, says the website. But it’s not Facebook. Sure, they’re trying to make things easier by using your existing login. But can you trust them?

Of course not! However, there are systems that allow you to sign in securely across multiple sites using a common login. They’re called “federated ID”.

In the Patch Monday podcast this week, David Simonsen, manager of Where Are You From (WAYF), a Danish electronic identification system, explains how so-called “federated IDs” and pseudonyms are already being used in Austria’s public health system and in Denmark’s education system.

We also have our first audio comment. A Scientologist tells us precisely what he thinks of the protesters from Anonymous, the kind of people who ran the denial-of-service attack on Parliament House we covered last week.

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. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

Patch Monday: Tough titties: Govt sites stormed

16 February 2010 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 30

A scoop in the Patch Monday podcast this week: an interview with c0ld blood, one of the organisers of the denial-of-service attack on the Parliament House website by Anonymous.

While Anonymous is better known for its masked protests against the Church of Scientology, some people operating under the Anonymous brand have branched out into protests against the Rudd government’s mandatory internet “filtering” program. Their attack in September 2009 brought down the Prime Minister’s website for about 10 minutes.

This time they were a lot more effective, with the target site being with with up to 7.5 million requests per second.

As well as c0ld blood, we hear from security consultant Crispin Harris, the vice-chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia Colin Jacobs, and a statement from AnonSA who distance themselves from the attacks.

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. We now accept audio comments too. Either Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

Patch Monday: iiNet: The whys and what nows

09 February 2010 in Film, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 29

The iiNet decision was clearly the biggest IT news story last week, so this week’s Patch Monday podcast includes a comprehensive explanation.

My special guest is Peter Black, who teaches internet law at the Queensland University of Technology. But before you get to listen to him, you can endure my summary of Justice Dennis Cowdroy’s full decision.

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. We now accept audio comments too. Either Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

Zombie Generation: The spreading infection

07 February 2010 in Internet by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

ZDNet Australia logo: click for the Zombie Generation article

“If you had to identify the biggest single issue confronting the security and safety and the confidence of the internet these days, particularly in the commercial space, you could only point to zombie botnets as the major concern,” says Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association (IIA).

On Wednesday, ZDNet.com.au published my feature story Zombie Generation: The spreading infection, which kicks off with a backgrounder on zombie botnets and then some worrying trends.

  • The malware used to create botnets is getting more sophisticated. Traditional stay-safe-online messages are no longer adequate — if they ever were.
  • Young people’s eagerness to share cool new things amongst their peers is natural human behaviour, but it runs counter to the “don’t share” messages.
  • It’s easy for kids to break out of the security restrictions of the laptops supplied under the Australian Government’s Digital Education Revolution program — something we also spoke about on Patch Monday.

Australian ISPs are now developing a more formal code of practice to detect and deal with their customers’ zombie computers.

I also posted a lengthy rebuttal to some fool trying to over-simplify this as “a Microsoft problem”.

Patch Monday: CCTV surveillance and Rudd laptops

02 February 2010 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 28

A double-headed Patch Monday podcast this week. Are multitudes of video surveillance cameras value for money? And do teenagers with free Rudd government laptops represent a security risk?

Security consultant Crispin Harris is co-author of the soon-to-be-published paper Information overload: CCTV, your networks, communities and crime [PDF], and he’s been digging into the numbers.

Meanwhile, a 15-year-old Sydney lad reckons he’s broken out of the security restrictions on the Lenovo netbook he got as part of the Digital Education Revolution and could install games and browse the school’s file server.

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. We now accept audio comments too. Either Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

[Update 11 February 2010: The paper Information overload: CCTV, your networks, communities and crime [PDF] is now online.]

Yes, I wrote about iPad, but not here

01 February 2010 in Blogging, Internet, Personal by Stilgherrian | 5 comments

Not posting here for a week makes it look like I’ve vanished. But increasingly, more of my work is elsewhere. Like my Crikey piece It’s called iPad, and the Kindle is rooted. Like the 2000-word feature I’m slaving to finish today for ZDNet.com.au. Look in the sidebar under “More Stilgherrian”. My online presence is now scattered amongst so many streams of data!

There’s an essay here about the meaning of all this fragmentation. But if I write that essay, I’ll end up having to admit this is precisely why Facebook has been so successful. So much of your life can happen through Facebook and its myriad third-party data-sucking privacy-perverting applications, from organising a BBQ to marketing a business.

The ease with which Facebook can become your all-encompassing social portal means Facebook will win.

That means I’ll probably never write that essay. I don’t want to admit Facebook will win. Because it’s ugly. And because they’re cunts.

Patch Monday: Online industrial espionage

25 January 2010 in Business, Internet, Privacy by Stilgherrian | 4 comments

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 27

Following the allegedly-Chinese attacks on Google (and 33 other corporations), and following Hillary Clinton’s assertive speech on Internet Freedom, online espionage is in the news — and it’s my topic on the Patch Monday podcast this week.

My guests are Mark Goudie, who heads the forensics practice at Verizon Business in Melbourne; and Ajoy Ghosh, security executive with Logica in Sydney.

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. We now accept audio comments too. Either Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

Patch Monday: Contactless EFTPOS and Google privacy

18 January 2010 in Internet, Media, Privacy by Stilgherrian | No comments

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 26

Privacy issues on the Patch Monday podcast this week.

Contactless EFTPOS and credit cards that allow you to make payments without a signature or entering a PIN, and the vast honey pot of personal data that is Google. It’s not just Gmail, but everything else.

My guest is the Chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation, Professor Roger Clarke.

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. We now accept audio comments too. Either Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

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