As must be obvious by now, The 9pm Election never happened. Sorry. But I have been thinking thoughts…
Weekly Wrap 190: Wattle you know, some productivity!
My week of Monday 20 to Sunday 26 January 2014 saw the return of something approaching productivity, as well as a stabilisation of the chaos. Excellent.
I’ve also started to get a clearer idea of where I want to take my media work in 2014, but more about that another time.
Articles
- Obama’s proposed NSA ‘reform’ changes nothing, ZDNet Australia, 20 January 2014.
- Is this the world’s safest phone?, Technology Spectator, 24 January 2014. This is my intro to Blackphone for the business folk.
- Our hackers, who art in open source, deliver us from refrigerators, ZDNet Australia, 24 January 2014. I think it’s fair to say that I had a lot of fun with this piece.
Media Appearances
- On Monday I spoke about digital privacy and Apple being forced to give refunds on Adelaide commercial radio 1395 FIVEaa.
- On Wednesday I spoke about the government’s discussion paper on online safety for children on ABC 702 Sydney, but it seems like I accidentally deleted the recording. Oops.
- On Thursday I spoke about passwords on ABC 105.7 Darwin.
Corporate Largesse
- On Tuesday one of the police sergeants at Katoomba gave me two packets of blue jelly beans. This is not a euphemism. They were part of the community outreach they were doing at the Katoomba Village shops. They were yummy.
There was nothing more substantial, surprisingly. But the coming week has some, and I’m looking forward to it.
The Week Ahead
I’ve finally caught up with these posts, so it’s now worth writing about my plans again. I wonder how long this will last?
As I write this on a holiday Monday afternoon, I’m still in the Blue Mountains. However I plan to be in Sydney overnight on Tuesday and Thursday, in both cases because there’s a good chance that certain business-social events in the evening could run a bit late. Or a bit messy. Or both. I’ll be in Sydney Tuesday through to Friday.
As always, the plan could change at short notice, so either pay attention to my Twitter stream or look at the calendar.
Tuesday will primarily be about mapping out the next few weeks — something that needs re-doing after the unproductive weeks disrupted my previous version of the plan. I won’t jinx it now by proposing when I do what, however. Let’s just watch it unfold.
[Update 28 January 2014, 1055 AEDT: Deleted references to being in Sydney on Tuesday. Plans changed.]
[Update 29 January 2014, 1610 AEDT: Changed references to when I’d be in Sydney again. Because plans changed again.]
[Photo: Australia Day in the eucalypt forest, being a lovely rendition of a wattle of some description on a quiet, drizzly day. Now bad for a photo taken on a bashed-up smartphone.]
Talking passwords on ABC 105.7 Darwin
When the list of the worst passwords for 2013 did the rounds last week, I’m glad that a few media outlets went beyond mocking those who used them and gave some practical advice.
ABC 105.7 Darwin was one of them. On Thursday morning 23 January I spoke with breakfast presenter Richard Margetson.
While it was a light-hearted chat, we also managed to sneak in the advice: use different passwords for everything important; the longer the password, the better it is; email account passwords are particularly important; use password management software to keep track of them all.
Searching the internet for “how to choose a good password” generally delivers reasonable advice, but I reckon Microsoft’s advice and password checker ain’t too bad.
[Update 1510 AEDT: As Nick Andrew points out, the problem with Microsoft’s password checker is that you’re typing your password into Microsoft’s website — which is obviously a Bad Idea. So my recommendation is to use it to explore how different choices for your password affect its strength, and then choose something different again for your real password based on what you’ve learned.]
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.1MB)
The audio is of course ©2014 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Talking digital privacy and Apple refunds on 1395 FIVEaa
I continue to be pleased that digital privacy issues are getting more and more coverage in the mainstream media — such as the interview I did last Monday 20 January with radio 1395 FIVEaa in Adelaide.
Presenter Will Goodings had spotted the story of Turnstyle Solutions in Toronto, who can track people around town via their smartphones and use that location data for marketing.
Rather stupidly, I talk about Australia’s Privacy Act being “under review” when in fact that review is well over and the new Privacy Act comes into force on 12 March.
We also spoke about the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) forcing Apple to refund $35 million to customers who’d had their kids make what they felt were unauthorised in-app purchases on their iDevices.
It’s something the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been concerned about too, and they have a page to explain how you can block in-app purchases or complain to Apple or Google.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.3MB)
The audio is ©2014 dmgRadio Australia, but here it is ’cos it hasn’t been posted on the radio station’s website. Besides, this is a reasonable plug.
Weekly Wrap 189: Net Neutrality, damage and drugs
My week of Monday 13 to Sunday 19 January 2014 was a little less productive than planned, but I did knock off a couple of items about Net Neutrality.
The productivity plunge was largely down to me changing medication for depression. It’s always a bit of a roller coaster ride as you change from one drug to another, lasting a week or more, and this was no exception. Looking ahead in time to the present, though, I’m thinking we may have gotten it right this time. Fingers crossed.
But my mood was also hit by a potential technical disaster. I knocked my MacBook Pro off the table once too often, and instead of the MagSafe plug popping out of the power socked as it should have, it jammed — and the plug itself was torn in half.
I stressed and stressed and stressed — until I realised I had access to a spare power adapter and, using that, discovered that the computer still worked as it should. Big sigh of relief.
Articles
- Net neutrality and why the internet might have just changed forever, Crikey, 16 January 2014.
I also wrote an op-ed on Sunday afternoon, but since it wasn’t published until Monday it’ll appear in next week’s wrap.
Media Appearances
- On Thursday I spoke about Net Neutrality on ABC Radio National Breakfast.
Corporate Largesse
None. But it’ll definitely start flowing again soon.
[Photo: I’m sure it isn’t meant to look like this, showing the accumulated damage to my MacBook Pro on 13 January 2014.]
Talking Net Neutrality on ABC Radio National Breakfast
The concept of Net Neutrality was in the news earlier this month: a US federal court struck down the Net Neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had introduced in 2010.
On 16 January I spoke about the issue on ABC Radio National Breakfast with Jonathan Green, and here’s the audio.
A US Court of Appeals ruling in Washington DC is being seen as a major blow to proponents of an open internet.
In ruling described as “even more emphatic and disastrous than anyone expected”, the court found internet service providers had every right to play favourites with their clients.
That could mean slowing speeds for services in competition with their own services and potentially charging higher fees to allow access to premium speeds.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.3MB)
I must admit, I feel like I rambled a bit. As we started the conversation, my mobile phone link went dodgy, and the producer had to phone me back. We started the interview after a break — that’s been edited out of this version — but it threw me a bit. I’m not sure that I recovered.
Still, I think we got through the key points, and later in the morning I wrote something more coherent for Crikey, Net neutrality and why the internet might have just changed forever.
The audio is of course ©2014 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is served here directly from their website.