Conversations – Page 36

29 March 201329 March 2013

Talking about DDoS attacks on ABC TV’s “The Business”

Screenshot from ABC TV's The Business A strange thing happened yesterday. A distributed denial service (DDoS) attack, a big one, got reported in the mainstream media as having somehow all but crippled the internet — despite all the journalists presumably continuing to use the internet as usual.

“The internet around the world has been slowed down,” reported the BBC. Um, no.

Now I won’t go through all the details here, because eventually they were properly reported elsewhere and I’m writing it up for Technology Spectator in a piece to be published Tuesday morning. The short version is that a nuanced report on Kaspersky Lab’s Threatpost lost its nuance in the mainstream media, a process helped along by a data-plotting error in early reports. People like Gizmodo hosed down the bulldust.

However I was interviewed by ABC TV’s The Business yesterday, along with Patrick Gray of the Risky Business information security podcast and Ty Miller from penetration testing firm Pure Hacking.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:30 — 12.0MB)

I’ll also be talking about this DDoS attack on ABC News24 tomorrow morning at 1010 AEDT — and after both of those I’ll ponder the way the media handled this whole thing.

26 March 201326 March 2013

Talking Yahoo!, Summly and more on ABC Local Radio

ABC logo The $30 million purchase of internet startup Summly by Yahoo!, the fourth most-visited online service, certainly attracted media attention today — thanks to founder Nick D’Aloisio being just 17 years old. So yeah, I did some radio.

I’ve just finished talking about that — and a whole bunch of semi-related issues like robot journalists and data mining — on ABC Local Radio around NSW with Rosie Beaton, who’s filling in for regular presenter Dom Knight.

I thought we’d talk for maybe five minutes, but it ended up being a 20-minute chat. Here’s the entire audio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:21 — 10.5MB)

23 March 201323 March 2013

Talking crimefighting smartphones on The Project

Screenshot of Stilgherrian on The Project, 14 March 2013 The trial of the alleged murderer of Melbourne journalist Jill Meagher revealed (at least to those who were previously unaware) the importance of evidence gleaned from people’s smartphones.

Last Thursday 14 March I ended up talking about that on Channel TEN’s The Project, following a package that featured Gizmodo Australia editor Luke Hopewell.

Just like my previous appearance on The Project, which is produced in Melbourne, I was beamed in from Sydney while sitting in front of a green screen. This time I even managed to get a picture of what it looked like from my point of view.

The video of the four-minute segment is embedded over the jump — which is immediately below if you’ve come directly to this page.

Continue reading “Talking crimefighting smartphones on The Project”

02 March 201323 March 2013

Talking the ABC hack on “7.30”

I was interviewed by ABC TV’s current affairs program 7.30 on Wednesday about the hack of an ABC website, in a story called Hacker attacks ABC, private information released.

The hack was apparently in revenge for the Lateline interview with controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The tweet claiming responsibility for the attack used the #OpWilders hashtag, the label for Anonymous’ ongoing protects against Wilders, but the operators of known Anonymous social media accounts are distancing themselves from this one.

Parts of the interview were also used in that night’s episide of Lateline, and a written story for ABC News Online.

It’s my third appearance on 7.30. I’ve previously spoken about the News of the World voicemail hacks and Anonymous’ hack of Stratfor.

24 February 201307 August 2022

Talking with Sir Tim Berners-Lee for iiNet

Still from video interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee: click for the video

Early this month I recorded a video interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, for internet service provider iiNet as part of their sponsorship of his TBL Down Under tour. That interview was published this week — and here it is.

[Update 7 August 2022: No, here it is.]

10 February 201310 February 2013

Talking The Global Mail on 2SER’s Fourth Estate

The ructions at new media outlet The Global Mail have been in the media a bit, from Matthew Knott’s damning piece at Crikey to my own whinge, Sydney Harbour “giant gambling den” bullshit reportage.

I wasn’t surprised, therefore, when I was contacted by journalist Charmaine Wong from the Radio 2SER media program, Fourth Estate. After all, the outlet has just celebrated its first birthday.

Here’s the full audio of her final story, which also includes comments from Dr Matthew Ricketson from the University of Canberra, publisher Graeme Wood, and a student who didn’t seem to be aware that The Global Mail does actually have a Twitter account.

Ricketson reckons we shouldn’t be too harsh on The Global Mail in its “early days”, but it’s been an entire year now. Some of these problems should have been sorted long ago, in my opinion. What do you think?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:43 — 4.2MB)