Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
A ship holding people prisoner is not a prison ship. Senator Bill Heffernan goes on record with a self-description. And there’s some lifestyle advice from QUT.
In this podcast, there’s talk of any number of things which should cause worry.
Continue reading “The 9pm Orgy of Confusion”
My week of Monday 18 to Sunday 24 May 2015 wasn’t overly productive — as the lack of published articles and podcasts listed below suggests — but it was the calm before the storm rather than a disaster.
Mostly.
Shut up. This is my story, and I’m sticking to it.
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There were four editions of 5at5 this week, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. To save me having to tell you this, you could just subscribe.
It’s the first of several busy weeks, made more busy by the fact that I’ve fallen behind in my writing.
On Monday, I’ll be filing a column for ZDNet, then working on a feature story. That’s likely to continue into Tuesday and Wednesday, wiping out previous plans to head to Sydney for a SANS Institute gathering and Optus Vision 2015.
On Thursday I’ll be watching a SANS Institute webcast on “Continuous Monitoring, Real World Analysis and Strategies to Mitigate Targeted Attacks”, and then writing it up as a column for ZDNet.
On Friday, I’ll be producing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, I reckon. And then it’s the weekend.
On Tuesday 2 June, I’ll be in Sydney yet again for Check Point’s Cyber Security Symposium 2015, and then flying to the Gold Coast for the AusCERT 2015 Information Security Conference, which runs through to Friday 5 June. Then it’s the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, and I haven’t quite decided what happens with that.
[Photo: Glenbrook Gorge, which is my favourite part of the train journey from the Blue Mountains down to Sydney, photographed on 20 May 2015.]
Is it possible to hack into a commercial airliner’s flight control systems by first hacking into its inflight entertainment system?
That’s the worry, certainly. But now the FBI has said that security researcher Chris Roberts told them he’d done exactly that hack 15 or 20 times, and on one occasion even managed to compromise the Thrust Management Computer, getting it to issue a “climb” command to one engine — with the result that the burst of increased thrust caused “lateral movement” of the aircraft.
Except Wired reports that Roberts told them that he claimed no such thing. He’d had many hours of conversations with the FBI, and in condensing that down to a few sentences they’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
This whole story caught the attention of 2UE morning presenter Stuart Hocking, we spoke about it for about seven minutes earlier today, and here’s the recording.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.9MB)
This audio is ©2015 Radio 2UE Sydney Pty Ltd.
My week of Monday 11 to Sunday 17 May 2015 was a strange beast. It followed a most unproductive week, and on the surface it looks equally unproductive. But it wasn’t. It seemed to herald a change. Or something.
I didn’t squeeze any articles out of the word-nozzle, but I did produce a solid podcast, and I did a big, big chunk of work on the SEKRIT project. This pleases me, because the work is both enjoyable and well-paid. I’ll have to find out whether I can tell you anything about it.
In between all that, I’ve been both stressed and in pain. The stress was just the confluence of the many things that need to be changed, from work to accommodation to financial matters to health to some personal issues. The pain was my old neck and shoulder injury flaring up. All these things are being dealt with slowly.
During this time, I’ve been ignoring Twitter. That’s simply part of a “strategy” to reduce the extraneous noise, and giving myself some thinking space. I shall resume Twitter activity on Monday, at the time of the New Moon, 1413 AEST. You have been warned.
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There were actually five editions of 5at5 this week, the proper amount, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. To save me having to tell you this, you could just subscribe.
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On Monday, I’ll be sorting out my writing and media production plan for the next three weeks. It’s also a day of shopping and pain killers.
On Tuesday, it’s a morning of writing, and then the journey to Sydney for some errands, and then a radio spot with Dom Knight on ABC 702 Sydney at 2045 AEST. I’ll probably stay in Sydney overnight because…
On Wednesday, I’ve got meetings at Circular Quay at 1000 and 1130, and then at 1230 it’s a media lunch with Doron Kempel, founder and global CEO of SimpliVity, at a nearby restaurant. He’ll be giving us his worldview on the evolution of this technology stuff. And then I head back to Wentworth Falls.
Thursday is a day of writing, with a break at lunchtime for RSA’s webcast, “Endpoint Malware: Finding the Evil in the Haystack”. Cute title. Friday is a day of writing too. I’m thinking of coming into Sydney on Friday evening to see what goes down at Cryptoparty Sydney. That could be an interesting thing to observe for the next episode of The 9pm Edict, but this will all depend on my levels of pain, fatigue and give-a-fuck.
The weekend will be spent well away from you people.
There’s a few busy weeks ahead. The first will start off with podcast production. On Tuesday night 26 May I’ll be in Sydney again for a SANS Institute gathering, at which I should be learning about how those evil hacker people exfiltrate data out of the target organisations. And on Wednesday it’s Optus Vision 2015, an event that I always get plenty of value from. The rest of the week will be full of writing.
The following week, on Tuesday 2 June, I’ll be in Sydney yet again for Check Point’s Cyber Security Symposium 2015, and then flying to the Gold Coast for the AusCERT 2015 Information Security Conference, which runs through to Friday 5 June. Then it’s the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, and I haven’t quite decided what happens with that. Whew!
Update 18 May 2015: Edited to reflect changing plans regarding a potential overnight stay in Sydney on Tuesday.
[Photo: En route from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma , photographed at the side of Tanzania’s central highway on 30 June 2009. Click through for the back story.]
In last night’s episode, titled The 9pm Inadequate Sense of Occasion, there were three things which may not have been entirely clear. Let’s deal with those issues right now.
One, I failed to identify a commentator I quoted, someone who’d given their opinion of America’s response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Two, my description of a bolt bomb was misleading. Three, I may not have been entirely clear in expressing my opinion of Australia’s Attorney-General.
Continue reading “The 9pm Supplementary Sense of Occasion”
There’s terror in Australia’s suburbs. But fear not. Attorney-General the Honourable Senator George “Soapy the Ankle” Brandis QC is on the case. And Bob Garfield speaks true wisdom.
In this podcast, there’s talk of trains, bombs, terrorism, conspiracies, more bombs, and more trains.
Continue reading “The 9pm Inadequate Sense of Occasion”