Month: November 2014

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Weekly Wrap 232: Malware, mobiles and misery

Darling Harbour at duskMy week of Monday 10 to Sunday 16 November 2014 was very, very busy. I had very little sleep, and I’m exhausted.

Apart from all the events and media activity you see listed here, I ended up doing the long commute, almost two hours from Wentworth Falls to Sydney and two hours back, every day from Tuesday to Friday.

Normally I’d have stayed in Sydney, but hotels were largely booked out. Apart from the usual November conference season, there was also the massive World Parks Congress and many refugees escaping the G20 lockdown in Brisbane.

There was literally nothing available in my price range — well, apart from backpacker accommodation, but that’s not a good fit with having to get up early and concentrate on media work. There’s only so much enjoyment one can wring out of listening to drunken unkempt foreigners porking each other all night.

Podcasts

Articles

5at5

There were editions of the 5at5 email newsletter on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Why not subscribe so you receive them all?

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday, I went to a briefing on govCMS by Acquia and the Australian government’s chief technical officer, John Sheridan, at Prime Restaurant in Sydney, where of course they paid for the food and drink. It was this briefing that led to the ZDNet story.
  • Also on Tuesday, I went to the launch of the Huawei Ascend Mate7 smartphone at The Star casino. Food, drink etc. That led to the Crikey story. I now have a Mate7 evaluation unit which, we were told, doesn’t need to be returned, on a Vodafone SIM, as well as a t-shirt.
  • Also on Tuesday, I went to the launch of Audible’s “#ListenUp, Australia” campaign, a promotion which allows you to get three free audio books by Australian authors, at Luxe Studios in Darlinghurst. Food, drink etc, and also a card telling me how I can get a free Audible service membership.
  • On Wednesday, I had coffee with the good people from Recognition PR. They paid for the coffee.
  • From Wednesday evening through to Friday, I was covering the aforementioned AVAR conference at the Sheraton on the Park in Sydney. Food, drink etc. Media objects have yet to be extruded.

The Week Ahead

It’s another busy one…

On Monday I’m heading to Sydney to cover the International Association of Privacy Professionals ANZ (iappANZ) annual summit, and on Tuesday I’ll be writing about same.

The rest of the week includes a TV spot on ABC News24 at 1615 AEDT on Thursday, as well as my usual ZDNet Australia column, plus initial work on a ZDNet feature, a Crikey story and some other bits and pieces.

The weekend is once again unplanned.

[Photo: Darling Harbour at dusk, with the rapidly-rising Barangaroo development on the right, photographed on 11 November 2014.]

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The 9pm Words, what even are they?

ABC7 Los Angeles screenshot

It’s time to have a few words about words. Yes, words. Words like “webinar”. Words like “disruption”. And words like “I have no words”.

Elephant stamps of approval go to the staff of American Airlines and Los Angeles International Airport for being fearful of a Wi-Fi hotspot name, and the fans of One Direction who didn’t know what a poppy symbolises.

And there’s more stuff, but you’ll have to listen.

Continue reading “The 9pm Words, what even are they?”
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Weekly Wrap 231: A purple flower, and the events pile up

Purple flag, a flower of some Patersonia species: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 3 to Sunday 9 November 2014 was remarkably productive, despite the temptations of then grains and the gentle ministrations of Mistress Insomnia.

Articles

5at5

My 5at5 daily email newsletter reappeared, and I managed to produce all five editions on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Why not subscribe so you receive them all?

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Thursday, I went to the launch of the Microsoft Nokia Lumia 830 smartphone at Paramount House in Surry Hills, where I was of course given good canapés and wine. I also got a Lumia-branded tote bag containing a packet of Microsoft-branded jelly babies; a 2GB USB stick containing media information; and a loaner unit of the Lumia 830 itself. I’ll be using it over the next two weeks, and will report back at the end of that time.
  • Also on Thursday, I went to the Indies Party, the annual not-quite-Christmas party held jointly by the PR agencies Bass PR, Shuna Boyd PR, Einsteinz Communications, and Espresso Communications. There was food and drink aplenty.

The Week Ahead

The coming week is both busy and more structure than usual. That said, my schedule is always subject to last-minute changes — whether that’s down to the news cycle, cashflow glitches, or simply not caring any more. As usual, the daily plan tweets my be found on my voluminous Twitter feed.

Monday should see the completion of an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast.

Tuesday is a Sydney day. I plan to attend the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Martin Place, though that will depend on me getting a decent sleep the night before. Then there’s a lunch briefing with the Australian government’s CTO, John Sheridan, then coffee with a PR agency, then two events in the evening. Audible is launching something or other with the hashtag #ListenUp, and Chinese tech giant Huawei is launching their new smart device. That looks like rather a long day, so I plan to stay overnight in Sydney.

Wednesday should see a morning of writing, then a meeting with executives from Slovakian information security company ESET, and some time at AVAR, the 17th annual conference of the Association of Anti-Virus Asia Researchers, which ESET is organising this year.

That conference runs through to Friday, but I’m not sure how much of it I’ll be able to catch. I still have my usual column for ZDNet Australia to write on Thursday, and some administrivia to deal with on Friday, and I hope to get some other bits and pieces of writing done too.

The weekend is yet again unplanned, as seems to be the usual way lately. At least at this stage.

Update 10 November 2014: Edited to add a section for 5at5, which I’d forgotten.

[Photo: Purple, being a flower of some Patersonia species, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages on 5 November 2014. It’s a Patersonia serica, according to Flower Checker.]

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Talking internet trolls in The Saturday Paper

The Saturday Paper mastheadI’ve appeared in The Saturday Paper for the first time today, in a story by journalist Martin McKenzie-Murray with the headline Web of abuse grows as online bullies spread malice. In my very first quoted sentence in this august journal, I drop the c-word.

It’s a talent.

McKenzie-Murray’s story is great. It explores the same issue as we discussed on ABC TV’s Lateline the other night, namely the hideous violent and sexually-explicit abuse women face online, and the rather disappointing response from the police. Once more, it’s based around the experiences of Caitlin Roper.

McKenzie-Murray goes further, though, and speaks to Roper’s key abuser.

“I disagreed with some of her [Roper’s] statements [about Ched Evans]. I used the word ‘rape’ only for effect however she took it personally. I’ve said many times before that logic would explain the fact that nobody intended on raping her and nobody wishes rape upon her. I did get carried away and did use some obscene language… however, they took a joke out of context and began a witch-hunt of sorts by posting my picture and personal information.”

“Logic,” eh? “Joke.”

It’s worth reading the article in full. Despite my presence in it.

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Talking WireLurker, Google, Peta Credlin on 1395 FIVEaa

FIVEaa logoThe WireLurker malware that affects Apple’s iOS and OS X devices has been in the technical news this week. That caught Will Goodings’ eye, as did the Forbes list of the world’s 100 most powerful people. We chatted about both on Friday afternoon.

I wrote about WireLurker at Crikey, so I won’t repeat that here. Our conversation on 1395 FIVEaa fleshes out some of the issues. If you want to get into the technicals, you can always read the original report from Palo Alto Networks or the independent analysis by Jonathan Zdziarski.

As for the Forbes list, Goodings was wanting to chat about Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page jointly holding the number nine spot. Which we did. But he also was interested in my suggestions.

For the most powerful Australian, I nominated the prime minister’s chief of staff Peta Credlin. “Nothing goes into the prime minister’s ear without her say-so, and nothing comes out of the government onto the media without her say-so,” I said.

Goodings then added his own comments, based on having see Credlin at work. It’s worth listening to. It starts at 15 minutes 27 seconds. I’ll also extract them for the next episode of The 9pm Edict.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (10.9MB)

The audio is ©2014 dmgRadio Australia.

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Talking internet trolls on ABC TV Lateline

Screenshot of Stilgherrian on Lateline: click for video and transcriptLast week Collective Shout activist and campaigns manager Caitlin Roper told her story of the horrific misogynist abuse she’d received online, and what can most politely be called a disappointing response from the police.

I reluctantly went to the police station, already knowing that threats against women online are not regarded as a priority. “Why don’t you just close down your account?” asked the officer taking my statement.

I explained how I used Twitter in the course of my work for a non-profit organisation. She pressed further — “but why do you need to use it?” — as if it was somehow unreasonable for me to believe I had as much right as anyone to access social media without threats

…

Another colleague went to the police after one man described how he intended to mutilate her body and dissolve it in acid. The police officer suggested that the internet was “not a very nice place”, and maybe she should stay off it.

Last night, ABC TV’s Lateline did a follow-up story, the reported being John Stewart, and I provided a few comments.

It’s interesting that the one piece they used was about the internet putting everyone right next to everyone else:

It’s simply that within the past people were in communities, that were mostly made up of people like them or people they grew up with. If there was a violent part of town or a red-light district or whatever it might be, and you didn’t want to go there or you didn’t want to know about it, well you just didn’t go there. The problem is now on the internet all of that is right next to you as well and people are shocked by this. They’re suddenly discovering that there are people not like them. They have different attitudes to women, different attitudes to acceptable language, to religion, to class, to sporting teams, to clothing as we’ve seen in the media lately. Everything.

I also said that thanks to the internet, we are now building a global society, and yet policing is organised on a regional or even local basis.

While these women, and so many others, have experienced appalling abuse, in most cases there’s no credible threat. Even if the police cranked up the mechanisms of transnational police cooperation, there’d be little chance of a prosecution leading to a conviction. Their lack of follow-up reflects that unfortunate reality, as well as many police officers’ unfamiliarity with online life.

I daresay I’ll have further thoughts in this, because this story certainly isn’t going away.

Yes, I know they spelt my name wrong. Yes, I know they said “social media commentator”.