Category: Media

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Talking LulzSec vs Murdoch on ABC 774 Melbourne

I knew as soon as I posted my CSO Online and Crikey stories about the hack of the News International websites including The Sun this morning that I’d be asked to do some radio spots.

If you missed the story, this morning I posted a screenshot of the fake story posted on The Sun.

Sure enough, this afternoon I chatted with Lindy Burns on ABC 774 Melbourne. And here’s the audio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:05 — 2.4MB)

The audio is ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it hasn’t been posted on their website so here it is. In return, I reckon you might choose to listen to Lindy Burns’ drive program some time soon.

I also spoke with Bernadette Young on ABC Gold Coast, but my phone kept dropping out. I did record the audio, but it covered much the same territory. Would you like me to post it?

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LulzSec claims to hack The Sun: screenshot

High-profile hacking collective LulzSec is currently claiming to have hacked UK newspaper The Sun and redirected its home page to a fake story about the suicide of Rupert Murdoch.

While The Sun was looking just fine to me, there was certainly a story inserted into a News International website.

The screenshot shows the page at www.new-times.co.uk/sun/ as of about 0730 AEST this morning.

Gizmodo is currently saying the home page was hacked, but they’re also saying the hack was done by Anonymous. That’s journalism right there.

At 0815 AEST LulzSec then claimed to have redirected The Sun home page to their Twitter feed. I’ve just confirmed that to be true.

Since I write about information security, it looks like I’m in for a busy day. I’ll update this post as things unfold.

[Update 0910 AEST: I’ve had many witnesses confirm that The Sun’s home page did indeed redirect to the fake story. I will assume for the moment that the Next G mobile broadband I’m currently using is cached to buggery.]

[Update 1015 AEST: My story at CSO Online has just been published, LulzSec hacks UK’s “The Sun”, News International. Meanwhile, a few minutes ago LulzSec claimed that “News International’s DNS servers (link web addresses to servers) and all 1,024 web addresses are down.”]

[Update 1235 AEST: The consensus seems to be that News International has taken itself offline. There has been no further activity from LulzSec, apart from more of their trademark cocky tweets.]

[Update 1415 AEST: My Crikey story is now online, LulzSec 1, Murdoch 0: News Int, the hacker, becomes the hacked.]

[Update 1840 AEST: I’ve just posted audio of my interview with ABC 774 Melbourne on this story.]

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Could “Stilgherrian Live” return?

Amongst all the strange things that happened yesterday, one has stuck strangely in my mind even after sleeping and waking up strangely. A question. Could Stilgherrian Live return?

It’s almost two years since the last episode of my curious little live video webcast when, curiously enough given this week’s curious news about News, James Murdoch was voted “Cnut of the Week”. No, that’s not a typo, that’s what the segment was called.

Yesterday, within an hour of the moment of Full Moon, several different people suggested or even called for the program’s return — including two completely unrelated people who recently discovered the program archives, one who used to watch it every week back in 2008 and 2009, and one who thought… um, suggested… um, no… I can’t say any more. Bloody television.

So what do you think? Should the program remain a thing of its time, with the shows that were made sitting in the archive? Should Stilgherrian Live return? If it did return, which components should be continued? And when should it be produced?

My own thoughts are quite jumbled on this which is why I am asking you, Dear Reader…

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Talking voicemail hacking on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide

It seems that awareness of the News of the World voicemail hacking scandal is starting to spread from media-about-the-media like Crikey through the mainstream current affairs programs to, well, mainstream talk radio.

Earlier this morning I was interviewed on the topic by Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa, and here’s the audio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:37 — 3.6MB)

It was kinda fun to be interviewed by presenters Keith Conlon and John Kenneally. Keith taught me how to do radio when I started in that medium and he was station manager at what is now Radio Adelaide. I later worked with him and with John at the ABC. And the newsreader I heard just before our interview, Jane Doyle, was at the ABC at that time too. Small world.

The audio is ©2011 dmgRadio Australia, but since they don’t post many of their live interviews I’m doing their job for them. Besides, it’s not as if I get paid, and it’s not as if this ain’t a decent plug for them.

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Talking voicemail hacking on ABC TV’s “7.30”

I was interviewed by ABC TV’s current affairs program 7.30 yesterday for a story about voicemail hacking, More allegations against Murdoch media.

Interestingly, most of the soundbites we recorded were about how easy it is to access someone’s voicemail, but the resulting story was more about whether something like the News of the World scandal could already be happening in Australia.

Recording this piece was a pleasant reminder of working in daily live radio. The pace is kinda fun. The ABC called me at 2.15pm, and arranged for the crew to meet me at 3.15pm. We drove to a nearby park and recorded the main interview as well as the cutaways in a total of 45 minutes. And that was in between the noise of aircraft taking off, motor cycles, and pedestrians and cyclists walking between me and the camera.

I’m shown using both laptop and phone. Does that put me into the category of mouse-using TV expert?

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Talking Myspace on ABC 774 Melbourne

In 2005 Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace, as the orthography went, for USD 580 million. Yesterday he sold the operation, now branded Myspace or even just My_____, depending where you look, for a mere USD 35 million. Not exactly a profit.

The buyer was Specific Media, an advertising targeting company. One of the investors is musician and actor Justin Timberlake, although the size of his stake has not been revealed.

There’s now plenty of speculation about whether Myspace will build on its recent music focus, and how it’ll shape up against the monster that is Facebook and the new contender, Google+.

Yesterday I chatted about all this stuff with Lindy Burns on ABC 774 Melbourne. This time she got my name right.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:33 — 3.8MB)

The audio is ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it hasn’t been posted on their website so here it is. In return, I reckon you might choose to listen to Lindy Burns’ drive program next week.