Stilgherrian – Page 255

27 January 201227 January 2012

Weekly Wrap 85: Trains, planes, Linux and podcasts

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers the week from Monday 16 to Sunday 22 January 2012, i.e. last week. Yes, just like last week’s Weekly Wrap it’s being posted way late because I’ve been incredibly busy.

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.

Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 85: Trains, planes, Linux and podcasts”

26 January 201227 January 2012

Weeky Wrap 84: Rosellas, cyberwar and lots of radio

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers the week from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 January 2012, posted way late because I’ve been incredibly busy.

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.]

26 January 2012

Talking SOPA on Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa

This is being posted a bit late. It’s a conversation about the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Wikipedia blackout originally broadcast on 18 January. So it’s been overtaken by more recent events.
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The presenters, as usual, are Keith Conlon and John Kenneally at 1395 FIVEaa, two chaps I used to work with back at ABC 891 Adelaide some… um, some years ago.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.4MB)

21 January 2012

Linux.conf.au delays everything else in my life

The lack of posts since 15 January — including still not posting last week’s Weekly Wrap — is the direct result of me spending the entire week covering the Linux.conf.au 2012 conference in Ballarat. I’m exhausted. And today there’s still the War on the Internet forum to cover in Melbourne.

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.

15 January 2012

Talking internet scams on Sydney radio 2UE

Well, this is a roundabout thing. On Saturday afternoons Trevor Long does a regular radio spot on 2UE 954 with presenter Tim Webster. This week Paul Wallbank was going to fill in but then it turned out that he couldn’t. So I ended up doing it.

The topics we discussed included the online extortion attempt against Sydney businessmen Sulieman Ravell and his firm Funds Focus; scams relating to London 2012 Olympics tickets, and other scams that Paul Wallbank had identified, as well as his tips for avoiding scams.

We also mentioned the new top-level internet domains.

Trevor Long, meanwhile, talked about the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and what caught his eye there.

Here’s the audio, including the far-too-many mobile phone dropouts — which Tim Webster handled with aplomb — and a little bleep every time I skip over other segments like the sport and traffic reports. In fact I’ve left in Mr Webster’s handling of these glitches precisely because it shows his professionalism.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.4MB)

The audio is Â©2012 Radio 2UE Sydney Pty Ltd, of course, but as usual I’m posting it here in case they don’t post it at their own website. The little beep sound is by junggle via Freesound.org, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

12 January 201212 January 2012

Talking cybersecurity on ABC Radio National Breakfast

Actually, this message about cybersecurity being a serious emerging theme for 2012 seems to be getting more mainstream coverage than I thought it would. I was part of a cybersecurity panel discussion that was broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast this morning.

Also taking part were Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest in Detroit (I spoke with him about Anonymous and Stratfor on this week’s Patch Monday podcast), and Sean Kopelke, director of security and compliance solutions at Symantec Australia. The host was Jonathan Green, who is usually editor of ABC The Drum.

Over at the ABC’s website you can find the program audio and (perhaps, eventually) transcript. But I’m also including the audio below, just in case their systems fail.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:35 — 9.5MB)