It was an odd week. It rained. A lot. And the continual greyness felt like it was threatening to trigger seasonal affective disorder unseasonably. I figured it was best to generally ignore the world. I’m amused that this seemed to cause some distress in certain quarters. Thank you for taking an interest.

Well that, and fucking around in the rain caused me to catch a cold. Sort of. I conquered the cold with massive doses of Vitamin C. I am a hero.

I was less of a hero when it came to tackling certain technical problems with my computer. I’ll whinge about that another time.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 123, “Skipping security is human nature”. Chris Wood, regional director for Australia and New Zealand at security vendor Sourcefire, explains how V = EC² explains everything. Or something. I don’t know. Listen to the podcast.

Articles

• The tweets must flow, except when they risk revenue, Crikey, 31 January 2012.
• Why security comes last, ZDNet Australia, 31 January 2012. This story includes the companion video to this week’s Patch Monday podcast, in which Chris Wood draws a diagram.

Media Appearances

• On Monday night I spoke about Twitter and censorship with Dom Knight on ABC Local Radio in NSW.
• On Friday I was interviewed by Radio 2SER for their Saturday current affairs program Razor’s Edge. The conversation was about this week’s Federal Court decision on Optus’ TV Now service and live sports broadcasts. (And in case that podcast site disappears, I’ll mirror the audio file.)

Corporate Largesse

None.

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: Rain clears, momentarily. As I said, I was raining almost the entire week, making Bunjaree Cottages a slightly a dreary place. But when the rain did clear, this was the view from Rosella Cottage.]

This week included the last of my output from Linux.conf.au. I’ve just gathered all of my Linux.conf.au coverage plus selected other people’s in one place for your convenience.

Add this week’s media output to last week’s and you can see why I’ve been kind of exhausted. Thank the gods, we’re having a pseudo-long weekend.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 122, “War on the internet: it’s all about power”. The podcast covers the previous weekend’s War on the Internet forum Electronic Frontiers Australia and The Greens, and featured Suelette Dreyfus, co-author with Assange of Underground; Greens’ Senator Scott Ludlam; Crikey’s Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane; and headline speaker Jacob Appelbaum, internet security researcher, software hacker and activist.

Articles

• Collateral damage in the copyright wars, ABC Drum Opinion, 23 January 2012.
• Beware the piracy clones, Technology Spectator, 23 January 2012.
• Untested buggy UEFI heads for prime-time, ZDNet Australia, 23 January 2012. Also published at TechRepublic.
• Ah, the tech-soap that is Apple will run and run, Crikey, 25 January 2012. Warning: This article offends pompous Randroids. Apparently. Fuck ‘em.
• Linux.conf.au 2012 photos, ZDNet Australia, 25 January 2012. Also published at TechRepublic.
• Hacked or not, Ludlam’s a target of spies, ZDNet Australia, 25 January 2012.

Media Appearances

• On Saturday I spoke with Sydney radio 2UE about cyberbullying and Rose Smith’s suggestion that children should be made to surrender their mobile phones at night.

Corporate Largesse

• D-Link gave me a DCS-930L Wireless N Network Camera, which they sometimes describe as a “cloud camera”, the arsehats. I’ll be writing about that separately.
• On Wednesday Chris Wood, regional director for Australia and New Zealand at security vendor Sourcefire, bought me a coffee.

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: Three sprigs at Threefold. Three sprigs of mint in three brown bottles grace the windowsill in the toilet at Melbourne's Threefold Foodstore and Eatery. I think that's just a wanked-up word for "cafe". I had the spatchcock, thank you very much.]

The main cause of that was covering Linux.conf.au 2012 (LCA) conference. Indeed, some of the conference coverage wasn’t posted until well into the following week — which is this week as I’m posting this post, except it shouldn’t be because this post is about last week. Confused? You should’ve been there!

Now there’s so much stuff here that I’m posting the main body of text over the fold. If you’re only seeing the preview, do click through ‘cos there’s a very important question about the photo.

Podcasts

This week was Podcast Hell. Or Podcast Heaven, depending on how you look at it. Apart from the regular Patch Monday, I did a serious of four daily podcasts from the Linux.conf.au 2012 conference. Ermph.

• Patch Monday episode 122, “Cyber extortion: a victim’s story”, in which Suleiman Revell explains what it’s like when a distributed denial of service attack takes your business offline.
• TechRepublic at Linux.conf.au, episode 1, “Three threats and a balloon”. Also posted at ZDNet Australia as Linux should copy Apple on user rapport, which isn’t trolling at all. Includes open source luminary Bruce Perens’ comments on a certain attitude problem in some sections of the community, LWN.com’s Jonathan Corbet about the challenges facing Linux kernel development in 2012, and a brief introduction to Project Horus, which has used balloons to send Linux computers to the edge of space.
• TechRepublic at Linux.conf.au, episode 2, “FreedomBox’s privacy”. Also posted at ZDNet Australia. FreedomBox Foundation board member and developer Bdale Garbee provides a progress report on their privacy-enhancing personal servers, Red Hat’s experimental platform as a service (PaaS) product OpenShift is explained by its evangelist and open-source advocate Mark Atwood, and we report exactly what happened to that Linux-equipped balloon launched by Project Horus that we mentioned in episode 1.
• TechRepublic at Linux.conf.au, episode 3, “Cyborg lawyer demands source”. Also posted at ZDNet Australia as Cyborg lawyer demands software source. Lawyer Karen Sandler explains the links between her potentially fatal heart condition and software freedom, there’s part two of our look at FreedomBox, and a conversation with Mary Gardiner and Valerie Aurora about the Ada Initiative, a project to increase the participation of women in open technology and culture.
• TechRepublic at Linux.conf.au, episode 4, “Planes, sounds and freedom”. Also posted at ZDNet Australia as Linux.conf.au 2012: planes and freedom. Security researcher, software hacker and activist Jacob Appelbaum explains the problem with the surveillance state and what individuals can do about it, David Rowe explains the Codec 2 audio compression software that can transmit intelligible speech in as little as 1400 bits per second, and Andrew Tridgell, best-known for his role in developing the Samba networking technology, introduces us to his recent work with semi-autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Articles

• Open source needed to save democracy, ZDNet Australia, 18 January 2012. Also published at TechRepublic.
• Aus becoming surveillance state: Ludlam, ZDNet Australia, 20 January 2012.
• No SOPA for Australia: AG (contributor only), ZDNet Australia, 20 January 2012.

Media Appearances

• On Wednesday morning I spoke about the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the internet blackout protest with Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa.
• On Wednesday evening I spoke about the same thing on ABC Local Radio with Dom Knight, but I screwed up the recording.

Corporate Largesse

None. Again. All the Linux.conf.au social events were part of a conference I covered so that’s work, dammit. And the stingy bastards at The Greens and Electronic Frontiers Australia didn’t provide any refreshments at Saturday’s War on the Internet forum. No wonder I drink.

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: Trackside Australia, Victorian division. This snapshot was taken from the train somewhere between Melbourne and Ballarat. Can anyone identify the precise location? The location has been identified as the spot where the Bacchus Marsh – Balliang Road crosses the railway.]

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

• The snake oil that is domain registries’ big fat new revenue stream, Crikey, 11 January 2012.

Media Appearances

• On Monday I was on ABC NewsRadio talking about generic cyberthreats as sold by the Australian Federal Police, or something.
• On Thursday morning ABC Radio National Breakfast had an expert panel on cybersecurity, and I was one of the experts. I suggest you read the daft troll’s comment on this post. It’s a hoot.
• On Saturday afternoon I was talking about various online scams on Sydney radio 2UE. They were so happy with this week’s post that I’m now booked in for this Saturday 28 January at 1530 AEDT to talk about trolling.

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.]

I’m exhausted. So it might be another day or two before I catch up with everything here. As usual, the best way to stay in touch with what I’m doing is my high-volume Twitter stream.

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.]

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!

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — which wasn’t a lot because the sloth and the holiday season have started to take their toll. That’s also why this is being posted so late. Cope.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 118, “2011: the year in security”. A panel discussion with Chris Gatford, director of penetration testing firm HackLabs; Paul Ducklin, Sophos’ head of technology for Asia Pacific; Stephen Wilson, managing director of Lockstep Group, who provides advice and analysis on digital identity and privacy technologies; and Jon Callas, chief technology officer at Entrust.
• The 9pm Edict episode 15, which includes my claim that Senator Stephen Conroy deliberately dropped the f-bomb earlier in the week.

Articles

• Time to drop the ‘e’, Technology Spectator, 13 December 2011. Lovely headline, but the article is actually about the language we use to describe technology.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

• On Tuesday, MobileIron paid for lunch at Silverbean on Enmore Road.
• On Friday, Symantec paid for lunch at Sake Restaurant, The Rocks.

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: A View from Hilton Hotel, Sydney, in particular the view onto George Street from the Executive Lounge. This photo was actually taken last night, 19 December, not in the "correct" week. But I know you won't mind.]

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. I have no further explanations to add.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 117, “Is anonymity online your right?” A conversation with Scott Shipman, eBay’s global privacy leader, about online reputation and trust, data breach-notification laws, the behavioural targeting of advertising, eBay’s AdChoice technology for controlling that targeting, some of the clever things you can do by data mining eBay’s sales data, and how you might create the online equivalent of an untraceable cash transaction.

Articles

• Want data? Scoop up those lost USB keys, CSO, 7 December 2011.
• When is a journalist not a journalist?, ABC Drum Opinion, 9 December 2011.
• Turnbull overstating the uncommercial NBN case … mostly, Crikey, 9 December 2011.
• Govt’s DisasterWatch: the ’9/11 of apps’, ZDNet Australia, 9 December 2011.

Media Appearances

• I was a panellist on the Technology Spectator “webinar” [ugh!] “Board with security?”, which looked at why company directors need to understand information security a bit better and how they might go about it. The recording hasn’t been posted online yet, but I’ll put a link here when it is.
• On Thursday night I was interviewed by ABC Radio News about a report by the Australian Government Competitive Neutrality Complaints Office, part of the Productivity Commission, into claims that the National Broadband Network’s grenfields fibre rollouts breached certain government policies. Exciting stuff. Sound bites were used on Friday’s morning’s AM program in a story headlined Government brushes off NBN criticisms.

Corporate Largesse

None. And I thought there’d be a bunch of corporate parties this week. But I spent most of the week at Wentworth Falls instead.

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: A slender-billed cuckoo-dove, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages in the Blue Mountains. There's a lot of bird life up here.]

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. I’m feeling lazy this weekend, after a fairly intense and sleep-lacking time, so I’ll post this early.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 116, “Is anonymity online your right?” Highlights of the media140 Australia panel discussion on digital anonymity.
• The 9pm Edict episode 14, which includes material recorded at Thursday night’s CBS Interactive Christmas Party.

Articles

Not a lot in the written-words department this week, but I’m very, very happy with the one piece I did write.

• Influence without Klout, Technology Spectator, 28 November 2011. All this “social influence measurement” stuff is bullshit as far as I can see, and this article explains why.

Media Appearances

• On Tuesday I spoke with ABC Gold Coast about exploding iPhones and some information security tips for the holidays. Alas, I didn’t record it.
• On Wednesday I spoke with ABC 105.7 Darwin about the Downfall parody internet meme and the like. There isn’t a recording of this one either.
• On Thursday I was on the ZDNet Live panel discussion Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth.

Corporate Largesse

The Christmas party season has started. Expect this section to expand considerably over the next few weeks.

• On Wednesday, the guys from Bleeply bought me a cider, and I didn’t have time to return the favour.
• On Thursday afternoon, the Internet Industry Association hosted a two-hour cruise on Sydney Harbour with food and drink, sponsored by Enex TestLab.
• On Thursday night, CBS Interactive held their Christmas Party with food and lots of drink. But does that count? I do work for ZDNet Australia, and that’s a CBS masthead.
• On Friday, Watterson Public Relations held their Christmas Lunch at the South Steyne Floating Restaurant, Darling Harbour.

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: Horizon Apartments, Darlinghurst, photographed from Kings Cross. I quite like this building, designed by Harry Seidler. Many disagree.]

The topic was “Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth”, and the panellists were (left to right after me) Greg Stone, chief technology officer at Microsoft Australia; Zack Levy, chief commercial officer of Bluefire; Vito Forte, chief information officer at great big evil mining company Fortescue Metals Group; and moderator Brian Haverty, editorial director, ZDNet Australia.

If the embedded video isn’t working properly, or if you’d like a slightly bigger version, click through to ZDNet Australia.

More comments will doubtless appear over there too. With luck some of them will be a little bit more insightful than the childish “Microsoft bad, Linux good” platform zealotry of the first one, from jonalinux.

Cloud computing using Microsoft… you’re joking right. I guess it might be reliable if they double the amount of machines compared to Linux.

I recall when Microsoft bought Hotmail and switched over. It crashed immediately and in order to cope with the load, Microsoft had to double the amount of machines.

“When Microsoft bought Hotmail”? That was 1997. I reckon that if you’re going to have a go at someone’s technology in a grown-up conversation then your example should be just that little more recent than 14 years ago.

And was that even true?

Sure, as Microsoft initially replaced FreeBSD and Solaris (not Linux, note, so we have further evidence of jonalinux being an arsehat), Windows servers proved unable to handle the same level of traffic so the plan was delayed. But “switched over” and “crashed immediately” strikes me as complete bullshit — if for no other reason than that’s not how you manage a large-scale transition.

Yes, reliability problems plagued Hotmail a decade ago. When it had 30 or 50 million users and ran on Windows 2000. Today it has ten times the user base and technology ten years down the track. Decade-old misinformation from a zealot is such a waste of space. I’m sorry I even copy-and-pasted it in now.

[Update 0945: Added text of jonalinux's comment and my response.]

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Given that this is being posted so late, suffice it to say that I went to Canberra again and I was too tired for much of anything by the end of the week.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 115, “SOPA: war on the internet continues”. CNET chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh outlines the controversy surrounding the US Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), and Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane from Crikey positions SOPA as yet another example of what amounts to a war on the internet.

Articles

Only two articles this week — well, that were published. There’s more to come, articles that were written but not published. Both of these, though, are from the Trend Micro Canberra Cloud Security Conference.

• Today’s cloud winners: the cybercriminals, CSO, 24 November 2011.
• Want government cloud? Rethink security!, CSO, 24 November 2011.

Media Appearances

• This kinda counts as media. I was on the panel for the media140+ Digital Anonymity event, the audio recordings of which I linked to earlier.

Corporate Largesse

• On Wednesday, breakfast was provided at the Trend Micro Canberra Cloud Security Conference. That was the historic Hyatt Hotel Canberra, though not their full and rather wonderful buffet.
• Also on Wednesday, I had lunch at The Chairman and Yip, Canberra, courtesy of Datacom.

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: As I walked from Bunjaree Cottages to Wentworth Falls today, most of Railway Parade was lined with yellow flowers. The bees seemed quite interested. I'm also very impressed with the detail on the bee, given this was shot on a sub-$300 camera.]

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. There wasn’t quite as much chaos as last week, but still sufficient.

The Patch Monday podcast ended up being published on Tuesday, and I delayed my return to Wentworth Falls until then too. And I ended up coming down to Sydney very early on Friday, on the 0609 train, to cover the Apple vs Samsung case in the Federal Court for ZDNet Australia.

So despite sleeping most of Wednesday, I was still short of sleep by the weekend. Sigh.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 114, “Everyday malware is everyday criminals”. Alex Kirk, senior researcher with the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team (VRT), explains that Stuxnet is probably not your problem.

Articles

• Shock analysis: most cybercriminals are stupid, CSO, 15 November 2011. Getting more mileage out of the Alex Kirk interview.
• No easy answers in Apple-Samsung case, ZDNet Australia, 18 November 2011.

Media Appearances

• On Tuesday I spoke about Google’s names policy and suchlike on ABC 105.7 Darwin with presenter Annie Gastin.

Corporate Largesse

• On Tuesday I had lunch at Quay Restaurant courtesy of NetSuite. We were also each given a copy of restaurateur Peter Gilmore’s book Quay: Food inspired by Nature.

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 Commonwealth Bank headquarters, Darling Harbour, photographed from Parkroyal Darling Harbour. Hey, if I'm going to stay in Sydney an extra day I might as well take a photo.]

Watch out! I’m on the panel for the ZDNet Live event Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth on 1 December.

There are so many types of cloud out there and so many steps along the way. Are you setting out on the right path to the cloud for your organisation’s needs? In an upcoming live panel discussion, to be broadcast right here on ZDNet Australia, we look at the criteria you should be looking at.

Other panellists are: Zack Levy, chief commercial officer, Bluefire; James Turner, IBRS analyst (and ratbag); Greg Stone, Microsoft CTO; and moderator Brian Haverty, editorial director, ZDNet Australia.

Click through for the details. I couldn’t be arsed even copy and pasting them.

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This week included a visit to Canberra and the final death of my battered MacBook Pro.

The computer was three and a half years old, and has seen quite a few accidents. The biggie was doing a somersault down an asphalt road, bouncing off every corner and denting and warping the case. Another fall was only a cafe table leg, which dented the spine. After all that and plenty of other dents and scratches, the “9″ and “delete” keys had failed and it tended to crash randomly if I picked it up carelessly.

This morning the motherboard finally gave out. I’m amazed it lasted this long. It has been replaced with a crisp new MacBook Pro.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 113, “Bell Labs’ high-bandwidth future”. An interview with Bell Labs’ chief scientist Alice White covering social computing, optics, quantum computing, and the potential of Australia’s National Broadband Network..

Articles

Every article I wrote this week related to the third annual eCrime Symposium in Canberra.

• eCrime Symposium: Australia considers online crime portal, CSO, 9 November 2011.
• eCrime Symposium: Harden up, warns Aussie crime fighter, CSO, 10 November 2011.
• eCrime Symposium wrap: Satisfaction tinged with frustration, CSO, 11 November 2011.
• A great big cyber tax on business, Technology Spectator, 11 November 2011.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

• The organisers of the eCrime Symposium provided refreshments during the event, and a meal at Sammy’s Kitchen and drinks at the Tongue & Groove on the first night.
• On the night after the conference, I was bought far too many drinks by various people with kangaroos, emus and the word “security” or “crime” on their business cards.

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 Canberra Rex Hotel, where I stayed for three nights this week, is being renovated -- and it's long overdue. This is the toilet-flush button from my room, and there's further evidence.]