Category: Internet

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Talking Cyber Security Strategy on Radio 2UE

2UE logoThis is the third of four radio spots I did on Thursday to discuss Australia’s new Cyber Security Strategy.

For background on strategy itself, see the first post in this series.

This spot was on Sydney commercial station 2UE. The presenter was Bill Woods.

Each of these spots varied in content and style. In this one, we discussed the importance of cyber security and its history, the Bureau of Meteorology hack and its timing, the assumption that our spooks do what other country’s spooks do, the difficulty of attribution, the difficulty of cyber security, the cost of cybercrime, China’s hack of US fighter aircraft programs, and Australia’s ability to cash in on the cyber skills shortage.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.0MB)

This audio is ©2016 Fairfax Media.

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Talking Cyber Security Strategy on ABC 936 Hobart

ABC logoThis is the second of four radio spots I did on Thursday to discuss Australia’s new Cyber Security Strategy.

For background on strategy itself, see the first post in this series.

This spot was on ABC 936 Hobart. The presenter is Louise Saunders.

Each of these spots varied in content and style. In this one, we discussed why Turnbull spent so much time talking about the internet, why Australia needs such a strategy, Australia’s lack of awareness of cybercrime and our lack of data breach notification laws, the ASD’s role in protecting government networks, the cyber skills shortage, and the Cyber Security Growth Centre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.2MB)

This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Talking Cyber Security Strategy on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logoOn Thursday, prime minister Malcolm Turnbull released the government’s Cyber Security Strategy. Apart from writing about it for ZDNet, I ended up doing four radio spots. This is the first.

In this first post, I’ll mention as background reading the official Cyber Security Strategy website, the ZDNet stories Australia to get Cyber Minister as part of AU$240m cyber package and Turnbull calls for more openness surrounding data breaches, and my articles A ‘big science’ approach for Australian cybersecurity research? (published before the strategy was released, based on presentations at the ACSC Conference), and Turnbull sets the scene for a ‘Stop the Bytes’ election.

This first radio spot was on ABC 105.7 Darwin in the early morning, before the strategy was officially released. The presenter is Richard Margetson.

Each of these spots varied in content and style. In this one, we covered the recent rapid rise in cybercrime, the allegedly Chinese hack of the Bureau of Meteorology, a grab from Dr Tobias Feakin, and Australia’s ability to conduct offensive cyber operations.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.1MB)

This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Talking Apple vs FBI and more on ABC 774 Melbourne

ABC logoI seem to have settled into semi-regular radio spots on ABC 774 Melbourne, talking about technology news roughly once a month. I did one of these on Thursday.

The main item was the legal battle between Apple and the FBI over an iPhone that belonged to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino shootings of December 2015. While there’s plenty of coverage of this case, I will mention that the FBI’s hack may never reach Apple, and the only winners are the shareholders of cybersecurity companies, because more people will see security as important.

The other item was the announcement on Thursday of the IOT Group’s new product, the ROAM-e drone for taking flying selfies. Yes, that’s what I said.

Heres the full 22-minute conversation with presenter Casey Bennetto, who was filling in for Lindy Burns.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.3MB)

This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Talking Microsoft Tay on ABC 702 Sydney

ABC logoJust before before Easter, Microsoft let their youth-targeted chatbot named Tay loose on Twitter and other social networks — and it was a disaster.

Tay was meant to hold conversations with Americans aged 18 to 24, which is why it’s named after Taylor Swift. But the project was terminated after just 16 hours, because the bot started tweeting abuse at people, and even went full neo-Nazi, declaring that “Hitler was right I hate the jews.”

Art Technica reported some analysis of what went wrong. Davi Ottenheimer summarised the problem as “weak intelligence weakened by weakness”, and pointed me to more detailed research by Russell Cameron Thomas.

I spoke about this disaster with Robbie Buck on ABC 702 Sydney, debunking some aspects of the mainstream news stories along the way.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.2MB)

This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Talking smartphone data and battery life on ABC Kimberley

ABC logoLast Sunday, Telstra gave free data to all its mobile customers in an attempt to make up for a major screw-up in the previous week. That triggered a conversation…

As a variety of news outlets reported, one guy managed to download more than 420GB of stuff. Telstra’s mobile network was reported to be pretty slow as many other selfish pigs pigged out.

On Wednesday, I told Vanessa Mills on ABC Kimberley in Western Australia how people could reduce their mobile data usage and increase their battery like. This is the resulting nine-minute conversation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.5MB)

This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The ABC also turned this into a news story, Simple tricks to double your phone’s battery life and halve your data usage, posted Thursday morning.