Stilgherrian – Page 209

16 October 201316 October 2013

Is crowdfunded journalism a thing? My first experiment…

I’m getting sick of the “journalism is dying” meme. The old media factories are in trouble, sure, but I reckon journalism can do just fine without them. Stockholm Syndrome, people! So I’m going to put my money where my mouth is.

Well, your money.

I’ve just launched a Pozible crowdfunding campaign to send me to the Breakpoint and Ruxcon hacker conferences in Melbourne at the end of next week.

I won’t go into too much detail here. Just click through to the Pozible project page. All I’ll say for now is that there’s just seven days to raise $1800 more. Tight, but possible. More thoughts tonight.

[Update 2240 AEDT: Wow. Just, wow. It’s less that 17 hours since the Pozible project was launched, and it’s just passed 100% of the initial target. That means I’m definitely going to Breakpoint and Ruxcon, thanks to a raft of generous people. The project remains open until 1200 AEDT on Tuesday 22 October, though, with further funds going to the production of “Stream 2” items. See the Pozible project page for details of how that works. Thank you.]

13 October 201315 October 2013

Weekly Wrap 175: Lots of security, lots of productivity

[Update 14 October 2013, 0800 AEDT: As foreshadowed, “The Week Ahead” has been fleshed out with the current version of The Plan. However there’s evidence to suggest that this might change again later today. Update 15 October 2013, 1915 AEDT: The plan has changed again.]

My week Monday 7 to Sunday 13 October 2013 was relatively busy, although more on the research and information-gathering side rather than the final output side.

Podcasts

Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 6, being a chat with Michael Smith, head of Akamai Technologies’ computer security incident response team (CSIRT) about distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Articles

Tech boom? Innovation drives Newcastle’s (slow) renewal, Crikey, 7 October 2013, being my write-up of the DiG Festival.
Internet use: we’re more mobile, but we still need a cable, Crikey, 9 October 2013, being my response to the latest internet usage figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABC).

I also wrote my usual column for ZDNet Australia, The Full Tilt, but we’re currently waiting on a decision as to whether the planned headline is, um, pushing the boundaries.

Media Appearances

On Monday I spoke about Tor and Silk Road on ABC Local Radio across New South Wales.
On Sunday, I was a guest for the recording of this week’s Reckoner podcast.

Corporate Largesse

On Wednesday I went to a lunchtime briefing by Unisys at Wolfies Restaurant at Circular Quay — apparently it doesn’t have an apostrophe — where the food was lovely and the weather was gorgeous. They paid, of course.
On Thursday I went to the annual conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, where I was fed and watered. Check Point Software Technologies Ltd gave me a branded shirt. Watchguard Technologies Inc gave me a novelty USB memory device (4GB) packed with PR material.

The Week Ahead

~~The exact shape of the week will depend upon news arriving overnight, so I’ll add in the details tomorrow morning.~~

On Monday I’ll be mapping out the coming three weeks or so, including preparing some of plan for getting to Melbourne for the Breakpoint and Ruxcon hacker conferences. On Tuesday I’ll be continuing that work towards Melbourne and writing a piece for Technology Spectator that’ll due to be published on ~~Thursday~~ Friday.

~~On Wednesday I’ll be setting up the framework for another Technology Spectator yarn, as well as writing my ZDNet Australia column for Thursday.~~

On Wednesday I’ll be heading to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing by Dasault SystÃ¨mes about their new SolidWorks thingo, setting up the frameworks for Technology Spectator and ZDNet Australia stories en route. I may stay in Sydney overnight, depending on several factors. If I don’t…

On Thursday itself, I’ll be heading to Sydney again for a lunchtime briefing by NEC and Telsyte, staying overnight until Friday for a tour of the Pacnet data centre and some personal stuff.

There’s more in the schedule than that, of course, but they’re the relatively fixed pegs upon which the rest of the schedule hangs.

The weekend is currently unplanned.

[Photo: Not the ASD, photographed at the annual conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) in Sydney on 10 October 2013. The signage for the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), formerly the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), seems to have gone astray…]

13 October 2013

Talking many things on the Reckoner podcast, again

At very short notice today, I ended up being a guest on another episode of the Reckoner podcast.

Along with hosts Peter Wells and James Croft, the conversation included Jason Murray.

We talked about Chromebooks and the Move Concept Store and Leap Motion and whether Nintendo was dead yet and the Pokemon X Y Launch and the Omny radio app for smartphones and more. Including dicks.

There’s links to all those things on the episode page. That’s three links to that page now, so you should click on one of them. Go on.

That said, here’s the audio right here, embedded in this page so it’ll also appear in my Conversation podcast feed.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:04 — 26.1MB)

13 October 2013

Sixth “Corrupted Nerds” posted, on SoundCloud too

Yes, I’m working through the backlog. Another Corrupted Nerds podcast has just been posted.

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are cheap and easy to do. It’s just a matter of overwhelming the target site with a flood of internet traffic. According to Michael Smith, head of Akamai Technologies’ computer security incident response team (CSIRT), such attacks will only get worse as we roll out faster broadband infrastructure.

“That increases the amount of bandwidth available to the home, but that also increases that amount of bandwidth that a bunch of computers at the home can throw at a target site,” Smith says.

That’s not the only reason that DDoS is becoming more challenging to defend against — but you’ll need to click through to the podcast to hear why.

Corrupted Nerds is also available via iTunes, and now also on SoundCloud. So you’ve really got no excuse not to listen. Well, unless you’re deaf. But that’s different.

07 October 2013

Talking Tor and Silk Road on ABC Local Radio

ABC logo This evening I had a lovely conversation on ABC Local Radio in Sydney and around NSW on the takedown of the Silk Road internet marketplace and the Tor anonymity software that made such anonymity possible.

The presenter was the redoubtable Dom Knight. Given that we last spoke in April, we had a lot to catch up on. Here’s the full audio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.4MB)

07 October 201308 October 2013

Weekly Wrap 174: Newcastle, new events, new venues

My week Monday 30 September to Sunday 6 October 2013 was dominated by my trip to Newcastle for the inaugural DiG Festival and Conference. Both the city and the event were well worth it.

I’ll be writing about the DiG Festival for Crikey today, so watch out for that, but I’m sure I’ll have more to say later.[Update 2000 AEDT: And here it is.] I’ll also be writing about Newcastle, because I have many thoughts.

Articles

The digital revolution’s lingering literacy problem, ZDNet Australia, 30 September 2013.
Upping the pace to face the infosec ‘Cold War’, CSO Online, 30 September 2013.
The global clash to capture your cash, ZDNet Australia, 3 October 2013. The thoughts in this op-ed were triggered by the comments from the Commonwealth Bank guy at the DiG Festival, as well as the news that day about the takedown of Silk Road. And they in turn fed into…
Silk Road battleground: individualism v authority, ABC The Drum, 4 October 2013.
Will it float? Twitter’s prospectus shows signs of growth, Crikey, 4 October 2013.

I also wrote a 1000-word piece that’ll appear in a printed magazine that CSO will be handing out at some events between now and the end of the year.

Podcasts

None, but there’ll be a new Corrupted Nerds in the coming few days.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

On Friday night I had beers and pizza at The Grain Store Bar in Newcastle, thanks to the organisers of the DiG Festival and Conference.

The Week Ahead

Monday is a public holiday in NSW, but not in Victoria, so I’ll be writing my story on the DiG Festival and Conference for Crikey and, perhaps, a piece that I’ve kept on the back burner for Technology Spectator.

I’m keeping Tuesday empty for some personal reasons.

On Wednesday I’ll head to Sydney for a lunchtime media briefing by Unisys, and I may stay overnight because on Thursday there’s the annual conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA). [Update 8 October 2013: Confirmed, I’ll be attending the AISA Conference and staying in Sydney until Friday.]

Friday and the weekend are currently unplanned.

[Photo: Newcastle City Hall, photographed at around 0730 AEST on 3 October 2013.]