Author: Stilgherrian

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Patch Monday: Tough titties: Govt sites stormed

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 30

A scoop in the Patch Monday podcast this week: an interview with c0ld blood, one of the organisers of the denial-of-service attack on the Parliament House website by Anonymous.

While Anonymous is better known for its masked protests against the Church of Scientology, some people operating under the Anonymous brand have branched out into protests against the Rudd government’s mandatory internet “filtering” program. Their attack in September 2009 brought down the Prime Minister’s website for about 10 minutes.

This time they were a lot more effective, with the target site being with with up to 7.5 million requests per second.

As well as c0ld blood, we hear from security consultant Crispin Harris, the vice-chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia Colin Jacobs, and a statement from AnonSA who distance themselves from the attacks.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Please, let me know what you think. We now accept audio comments too. Either Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

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“Satay tofu burger”? No such thing!

The next time you see a café menu listing a “satay tofu burger”, please remember this Venn diagram.

Truly, there is no such thing as a “satay tofu burger”.

A burger has meat in it. Tofu is not meat, even if you cut it into little animal shapes — and that’s just self-deception anyway.

Satay is a peanut sauce for grilled or barbecued meat. If it’s not meat, it should not have satay sauce on it. End of story.

And even if you were using meat, a satay burger? What a wanker!

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Patch Monday: iiNet: The whys and what nows

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 29

The iiNet decision was clearly the biggest IT news story last week, so this week’s Patch Monday podcast includes a comprehensive explanation.

My special guest is Peter Black, who teaches internet law at the Queensland University of Technology. But before you get to listen to him, you can endure my summary of Justice Dennis Cowdroy’s full decision.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Please, let me know what you think. We now accept audio comments too. Either Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

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Crikey: iiNet’s win over the movie industry

Crikey logo

It’s almost old news now, but last Thursday the Federal Court ruled that internet service providers (ISPs) are not responsible for the copyright infringements done by their customers.

The full decision by Justice Dennis Cowdroy is almost 200 pages long, yet I found it relatively easy to read and learned a lot.

I’ve written three stories for Crikey so far:

  1. iiTrial: ISPs not responsible for users’ copyright infringement, which was published just a few hours after the decision was handed down. It’s the basic facts of the decision.
  2. iiNet decision a slapdown for AFACT, movie industry, which focuses on Justice Cowdroy’s comprehensive criticism of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) — not just the way they conducted themselves in court but their whole approach to dealing with copyright infringement.
  3. Conroy tells movie industry, ISPs to kiss and make up, published yesterday. AFACT looked like they expected the government to intervene, but communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy is instead asking the movie and ISP industries to negotiate a code of practice themselves, presumably via the Internet Industry Association.

I daresay I’ll be writing more soon. Meanwhile, if you have any questions…

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Liberal Senator Barnett proposes abolishing fair trials

Tasmanian Liberal Senator Guy Barnett today called for an end to fair criminal trials. Well, effectively.

In Senate Estimates today, Senator Barnett discovered that the government had spent around $10 million on the legal defence of nine people charged with terrorism offences. They were eventually found guilty. So Senator Barnett reckons that legal defence was a waste of money.

Senator Barnett, who chairs the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee, issued a media release earlier today headlined $10 million spent on legal aid to defend the rights of terrorists.

Apparently if someone is to be found guilty — which he must assume can be known in advance — then the cost of their legal defence is “government waste”.

Now people who are capable of joined-up thinking may see the logical problem and risk to human rights here. Like, you know, innocent until proven guilty and the right to a fair trial and all that stuff. So I’ve just sent the following email.

Continue reading “Liberal Senator Barnett proposes abolishing fair trials”

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Mark Day perpetuates Internet us-and-them

Once upon a time Mark Day (pictured) was relevant. As publisher of The Australian from 1977 and then its Editor-in-Chief, he ran what is still Australia’s only true national newspaper and didn’t fuck it up.

But today his column Net-gen forces state-sanctioned double standard tries to perpetuate the divide between old and new media, casting it as a generation gap using last week’s kerfuffle over South Australia’s electoral laws as a hook.

(As it happens, I wrote about that kerfuffle in a ZDNet.com.au opinion piece, SA’s Govt 2.0 became mob rule. I’m rather pleased that ITjourno.com.au‘s Phil Sim called it “a smart, thought-provoking column”. It generated a few good comments too. Thanks.)

Mark Day can be a bit of a fossil, says meta-journalist Margaret Simons. I agree, and in this case I reckon he’s got it wrong.

Since there’s no guarantee The Australian will post my comments, I’ve written him this open letter…

Continue reading “Mark Day perpetuates Internet us-and-them”