Month: March 2009

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Crikey: Conroy’s really bad week #347

Crikey logo

Just when you thought you’d covered every possible angle… Wow, what a packed week for Senator Stephen Conroy, eh?

I’m in Crikey today with a piece they’ve entitled Conroy’s really bad week #347: Classification Board website hacked. Which it was. And what a lovely new welcome message they had.

This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ. The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC. We are part of an ELABORATE DECEPTION from CHINA to CONTROL AND SHEEPIFY the NATION, to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. All opposers must HATE CHILDREN, and therefore must be KILLED WITH A LARGE MELONS during the PROSECUTION PARTIES IN SEPTEMBER. Come join our ALIEN SPACE PARTY.

I also offer some comments on Senator Conroy’s performance on ABC TV’s Q&A last night. You can watch the video for yourself, but I reckon he performed poorly.

Continue reading “Crikey: Conroy’s really bad week #347”

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Crikey: Two thirds of ACMA blacklist out of date

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Not only is the list published by whistleblower website Wikileaks over the weekend “definitely” the ACMA blacklist of banned internet content, it’s also “rubbish”, according to an industry source.

That’s how I started my Crikey story today, which continues in this vein:

ACMA’s blacklist is compiled from complaints received from the public. Manufacturers of internet filters pay $15,000 for the list, which must be included in their products to be eligible to participate in the government’s current field tests of ISP-level internet filtering.

Our contact in the internet filtering industry is highly critical of the ACMA blacklist’s quality.

“I’ve had a look at the list and it’s rubbish,” they told Crikey this morning. “I wouldn’t pay $100 for it, let alone $15,000. That list would make my filtering look really bad,” they said.

The article is free for all to read, i.e. not behind Crikey’s paywall. It also talks about the German police raid on the homes of a Wikileaks volunteer. Enjoy.

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Cnutly nominations open for tonight’s Stilgherrian Live

Cnut of the Week graphic

It’s Thursday. It must be Cnut Time. Yes, nominations are now open for “Cnut of the Week”!

For those new to the game, we’re honouring King Cnut the Great who, as legend would have it, attempted to hold back the tide to prove to his sycophantic courtiers that he was a mortal man. Each week we ask: Who do you think is futilely resisting the tide of change?

Nominations are open to people, organisations, nations and even abstract forces of nature — but your nomination has to reflect the news of the last week, and you have to give reasons. As usual, I’ll select the shortlist at 8.30pm Sydney time, and you can vote during tonight’s edition of Stilgherrian Live from 9.30pm Sydney time.

Who do you nominate, and why? Don’t forget the “Why?”!

[Update Friday 27 March: Due to peacocks, the program didn’t happen. I will therefore do a special catch-up edition of Stilgherrian Live tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time. Nominations for “Cnut of the week” are still open until 8.30pm.]

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Another leaked blacklist, another two Crikey stories

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Since Friday’s Crikey story about the leaked blacklist — which Senator Stephen Conroy denied was the actual ACMA blacklist of banned Internet content — there have been further leaks. And two more Crikey stories.

Monday’s piece was Yet another ACMA internet blacklist springs a leak. I explain how the leak unfolded, and how Wikileaks published instructions for extracting the cunningly-named file Websites_ACMA.txt from a certain brand of Internet filtering software — one of the Internet Industry Association’s Family Friendly Filters and one of those provided free to (a few) Australian families by the Howard government’s now-defunct NetAlert scheme.

I also run through Wikileak’s’s legal threats, and Senator Conroy’s latest spin — that the government never intended to block all of the ACMA blacklist, just the “Refused Classification” items. It’s a shame that doesn’t match a list of seven public statements about what’s planned to be blocked.

Tuesday’s was It certainly looks like the ACMA blacklist, eh Senator Conroy?. There’s further evidence that the most recent leaked list is, almost certainly, the actual ACMA blacklist. I also look at Senator Nick Minchin’s daft attempt to portray Conroy as Big Brother over a perfectly ordinary-looking government tender for media monitoring service.

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Pia Waugh: An interview for Ada Lovelace Day 2009

Painting of Ada Lovelace

It’s Ada Lovelace Day! 24th March has been selected by Suw Charman-Anderson as an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. This is my contribution.

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, known in modern times simply as Ada Lovelace, was the daughter of Lord Byron of poetry fame. A mathematician, she’s widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer.

“Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised,” says Charman-Anderson. “We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines.”

For my contribution, I decided to interview Australian geek girl Pia Waugh, and this is the result — the first time I’ve actually edited video with my own hands. Well, with a computer. Enjoy. It runs for just under nine minutes.

If the embedded video player (above) doesn’t work, try over at Viddler.

This is is also my first attempt at building a workflow for recording video interviews. There may more in the future.