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ABC Unleashed: NBN analysts miss the point

I’ve just written an opinion piece on the National Broadband Network for ABC Unleashed.

As you read the emerging analyses of the National Broadband Network (NBN) Implementation Study ask yourself three questions.

One, does the analyst realise that the NBN isn’t an internet service provider (ISP)? Two, are they demanding that the NBN gives the government a direct financial return on investment at commercial rates? Three, are they understanding the difference between now, the year 2010, and a decade from now?

The main thrust of my argument is that the NBN is national infrastructure, something the government should be spending money on even if it doesn’t make a direct profit. There’s only a moderate amount of tangential snark.

Enjoy. And, ideally, add comments.

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Visiting Microsoft HQ to talk security: what should I ask?

I’m off to America! Some tin-pot little IT start-up called Microsoft has invited me to visit their headquarters in Redmond, Washington (pictured) to find out what they’re doing about security, and in particular their Trustworthy Computing initiatives.

Now if you’re a crusty old network administrator like me, you may think that “Microsoft” and “security” in the same sentence is an oxymoron. A decade ago I was building Linux-based firewalls and, like so many people doing the same, I referred to Windows-based computers as “the targets”. And certainly the vast majority of the world’s malware is targeted at Windows.

But I’ve always though that the simplistic “Windows is bad, m’kay” was a bit, well, simplistic. Information security isn’t just about the technology, it’s also about people. Human factors are also the weakest link. And over the years I’ve found that people who throw around those tired platform-wars slogans usually aren’t up to date when it comes to the things they love to hate.

So, I’m off to Redmond later this month to spend three days with some of Microsoft’s engineers and developers, including briefing sessions with senior executives from Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group.

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50 to 50 #7: Wearing my Sunday best, for church

[This post is part of the series 50 to 50, fifty posts to mark my 50th birthday next weekend. Originally intended to be one per day, with the final one on the birthday itself, it’s been disrupted by my work schedule. There will still be fifty posts, eventually, just not one per day.]

On Sundays, as often as not, we put on our Sunday best clothes, slicked down our hair with Brylcreem and were driven in our white Holden Special HR station wagon to church. And here’s a picture [embiggen].

This photo was taken some time in 1969, again when I was around nine years old. That’s me on the right, my brother on the left, and a cattle dog called Duke in front. The farmhouse is in the background, the dog house on the right. Here’s another picture.

My mother, descended from some of South Australia’s original German immigrants who arrived in the 1840s, was of course brought up Lutheran. But my father was of English Protestant stock, Methodist to be precise, and a wife must take on her husband’s religion. So our regular church was the Nangkita Methodist Church, a sparse white-painted rectangle with a rust-free corrugated iron roof about a mile east of Mount Compass.

I’ve marked the building on the map below, though it doesn’t seem to be a church any more.

Back in the 1960s Nangkita Road was just a graded strip of gravel and yellow clay. In summer it was rough and dusty, in winter slippery with mud. When we hit some of the bigger potholes, the car would lurch and my mother would swear under her breath, “Shit and tomatoes!”

She also swore if my hair got messed up. She was obsessed with making sure it looked exactly right. If she noticed a few strands out of place she’d spit on a clean handkerchief and wipe them back into place. I’d push her away. “Hold still,” she’d say.

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Patch Monday: Google versus Groggle

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 39

Google, one of the world’s largest corporations, is in a trademark dispute with Australian web start-up Groggle. What’s the law here?

Groggle, based in Brisbane, is a “location-driven alcohol price comparison service”. It says its name is a play on words around the traditional Aussie slang “grog” for alcohol. But Google’s lawyers reckon their name infringes Google’s trademarks. Unless they reach an agreement by tomorrow it’ll end up being heard by IP Australia.

In the Patch Monday podcast this week, I chat with Cameron Collie, one of Groggle’s founders, and Kimberlee Weatherall, who teaches intellectual property law at the University of Queensland.

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. Comments below. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

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50 to 50 #6: Myponga Primary School

[This post is part of the series 50 to 50, fifty posts in the lead-up to my 50th birthday next weekend. Originally intended to be one per day, with the final one on the birthday itself, it’s been disrupted by my work schedule. There will still be fifty posts, eventually, just not one per day.]

One day in early 1966, when I was still five years old, I caught the school bus from the front gate of our dairy farm near Mount Compass and enrolled myself at Myponga Primary School.

Yes, I enrolled myself. My parents were too busy running the farm that day. I can just remember being taken to the principal’s office to answer the questions he needed to complete the enrolment form. Name, date of birth, address, telephone number, parents’ names and so on. I daresay my parents had phoned in advance with most of that stuff, but at the time I felt so very grown up and clever.

I knew my alphabet and could count and do basic arithmetic before I went to school. These days there are kindergartens and pre-schools in the cities and towns, and plenty of kids’ TV programs wherever you live. But who taught me back then? I’m guessing my grandmother — my mother’s mother — who lived with us on the farm. Alas, I have almost no memory of her.

School bored me. All these kids seemed so stupid! They had to be taught their letters and numbers and I already knew all that. Apparently I was disruptive in class. Who knew?

The photo [embiggen] is actually from 1969, when I was in Grade 5 and nine years old. Which kid is me? I’ll tell you at the bottom of this post.

The guy on the top row, sixth from the left with a cheesy grin, is Mark Lorenzetti. Our families were friends. Mark was the same age as me, his youngest brother the same age as mine, and he had a brother in the middle. Like us, they had a dairy farm, though theirs had plenty of irrigated land and was clearly far more productive through those droughts of the 1960s. I reckon our dogs were smarter than theirs though.

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50th birthday drinks next Saturday

If you’ve been following my 50 to 50 series, you’ll know it’s my 50th birthday very soon. Would you like to help me celebrate it with drinks next Saturday 8 May?

My birthday is actually on 9 May, but for Australians that’s also Mother’s Day this year. That’s inconvenient.

So, drinks (and good food) are on Saturday 9 May 2010 upstairs at one of my favourite haunts, The Hive Bar, 93 Erskineville Road, Erskineville from 2pm. There’s a map over the jump.

I’d like to give Adam some idea of how many people are coming so, if you can, please either RSVP by email or at the truly evil privacy-destroying Facebook event page by Wednesday afternoon. You don’t have to RSVP, you can just turn up. But if we get enough confirmed people we get our own bartender.

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