Category: Conversations

Conversations is an umbrella category of posts containing the full versions of the interviews and other guest spots I do for other people’s media products, including radio, podcasts and television. RSS Feed

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Talking Twitter and the election on Syn Radio

I’ve just been chatting about Twitter and other internet issues during the Australian Federal Election 2010 with Melbourne’s Syn Media, which broadcasts on 90.7 FM. And here’s a podcast.

I was interviewed by Tamsyn Byrne and Emma Buckley Lennox for the “Below the Line” election program. This recording is missing the final few seconds of the conversation, but that was really just the thank-you and a mention of my website.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:33 — 4.9MB)

The Conversations category is where I post the unedited versions of interviews I do, or the various media spots I do which aren’t podcast elsewhere. If you’d like to grab all of them in the future, subscribe to the RSS feed.

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Alastair MacGibbon on the Cyber Crime report

While I’ve already given my opinion of the federal parliament’s Cyber Crime report, why not listen to an actual expert opinion?

Last night I spoke with Alastair MacGibbon (pictured) for today’s Patch Monday podcast. We recorded way too much material for the podcast, so here’s the full conversation.

MacGibbon was the founding Director of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre, was with the Australian Federal Police for 15 years, he graduated from the FBI’s National Academy in the US, was Head of Trust, Safety & Customer Support for eBay Asia Pacific for four years — in short, he knows his way around this stuff.

We talk through some of the recommendations of the report Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime released last Monday — including MacGibbon’s own somewhat controversial view that we should actively block people’s computers from accessing the internet if their security software isn’t up to scratch.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:19 — 11.2MB)

If you’d like to grab all of these Conversations in the future, subscribe to the RSS feed.

[Photo: Alastair MacGibbon speaking at the recent Intelligence Squared debate, Governments should not censor the internet, in a frame grab taken from the ABC TV broadcast.]

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Bernard Keane on Conroy vs Lundy

[Update 1.30pm: Prime Minister Gillard has just announced her cabinet changes and Senator Conroy remains where he is. If you listen to the interview you’ll realise why.]

Now that Julia Gillard is Prime Minister, could or should Senator Kate Lundy replace Senator Stephen Conroy as Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy?

Delimiter‘s Renai LeMai has previously suggested that Lundy would make a better communications minister, and last Thursday he asked the question again. Gizmodo Australia is even actively campaigning for the change.

ZDnet.com.au‘s David Braue also reckons Gillard can save the comms ministry by involving Lundy — although he doesn’t go as far as calling for Conroy to be sacked, instead suggesting he become the Minister for the National Broadband Network.

In this week’s Patch Monday podcast, to be posted this morning, I chat with Crikey‘s Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane (pictured) about the possibility.

The #nocleanfeed anti-censorship campaigners might think a change in PM is reason enough to lobby for a change in communications minister, but Keane is not so sure. We cover that in the Patch Monday conversation.

Once we got talking, we also chatted about the historical context. A previous communications minister, Senator Richard Alston, was twice voted “global village idiot”, for instance. And we went into the political issues in more depth than appropriate for Patch Monday‘s technology industry focus. So, here’s the full conversation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:00 — 10.1MB)

I always record much more material than ends up in articles or podcasts, so I’m toying with the idea of posting all of my raw interviews here. Whaddyareckon?

Just in case I take that path, I’m creating a category of posts called Conversations, and you can subscribe to the RSS feed.

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My NBN interview on 3RRR

For those of you who missed it, here’s the audio of my interview about the National Broadband Network earlier this morning with Radio 3RRR in Melbourne.

Presenters Michael Williams, Fee B-Squared and Sam Pang wanted to focus on the money. Is $43 billion worth it? Will the NBN make money? Are people afraid of spending this much because they don’t understand the technology? It runs for 5 min 57 sec.

If the player thingy immediately below doesn’t work here’s a direct link to the audio file.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:57 — 6.8MB)