Category: Personal

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Talking total surveillance at the Sydney Writers’ Festival

I’m speaking at this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival in a free session on Sunday 20 May called iSpy.

Even before Google controversially demolished the privacy walls between its various products, we were already living in the total surveillance society. With every keystroke we are voluntarily telling companies, governments and heaven knows who else an awful lot about ourselves. Should we be worried about the uses to which this information could be put? Technology writer Stilgherrian discusses the implications of what we share with social media consultant Thomas Tudehope.

I daresay I’ll be covering material like that in my Sydney Morning Herald story You are what you surf, buy or tweet, and the more recent ZDNet Australia story The Facebook experiment, but the conversation will be up to you, the audience.

The theme for SWF this year is “the line between the public and the private”. As artistic director Chip Rolley says in his welcome message:

The question of the limits of what is personal is one of the hottest subjects around.

“Privacy is for paedos,” ex-News of the World journalist Paul McMullan told the UK Leveson Inquiry into the media. Now, via Facebook and Twitter, we voluntarily tell the world things we previously might not have told even our loved ones. Investigative journalists thrive on leaks and finding out what others don’t want us to know. And the state knows few boundaries (personal or political) in its need to prevent another 9/11.

(If you want a high-powered discussion of these issues, Sydney Town Hall discussion on Friday 18 May with former High Court judge Michael Kirby, former director general of MI5-turned-thriller writer Stella Rimington, former CIA interrogator Glenn Carle, media and news blogger Jeff Jarvis and investigative journalist Heather Brooke.)

iSpy is on Sunday 20 May 2012 at 2.30pm at the Bangarra Theatre, Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay. It’s free, and you don’t need to book — but I’m told that it can sometimes get busy at SWF.

Before that I have speaking engagements on 27 April at DigitalMe in Perth and 11 May at the Saasu Cloud Conference 2012.

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Keynoting the Saasu Cloud Conference 2012 with security

On 11 May I’ll be delivering one of the keynote presentations at Saasu’s inaugural conference, the Saasu Cloud Conference 2012 in Sydney.

The cloud is the enabler, it’s the medium that automation grows in. We want to focus on the value of online accounting automation, why it’s often undervalued and how you can get some for your own business or practice.

Saasu makes the online accounting system that I’ve been using since July 2007, and I know the chief executive officer and founder Marc Lehmann and chief happiness officer Tony Hollingsworth.

Good leadership and a good attitude continues to deliver a good product. Well, I think so anyway. At least it works for me.

My keynote will be something about security and the cloud, obviously enough, but I’ll lock down the details before the end of this week.

Mind you, I wrote the ZDNet Australia feature Cloud security? Better get a lawyer, Son! in October 2010, and since then I’ve written Cloud could be ‘privacy enhancing’: Pilgrim and Hybrid clouds the eventual reality for risk management and Today’s cloud winners: the cybercriminals and Want government cloud? Rethink security! so I’ve got plenty of material to start with.

Saasu has kept the price down to a reasonable $99 for a full-day event. You can register online.

[Update 11 May 2012: I’ve just posted notes and background material for my presentation, Security and the Cloud: Hype versus Reality.]

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Twitter avatars for Empire Day

On Monday I discovered by accident — well, by a 5am media release from the Prime Minister — that it was Commonwealth Day. Which used to be called Empire Day. Or even British Empire Day. I thought I’d celebrate by using a selection of avatars on Twitter. These are their stories.

From left to right, a slightly retro illustration of Britannia stolen from the Daily Mail; a model showing off the Fever Rule Britannia Sequin Dress, which you can hire from Bryony Theatrical; some random British military beefcake; Angus Stewart’s photo of Rule Britannia Pete; the DeviantArt profile picture of Britannia–Angel, a male of unstated age from the UK; and some random picture from Sodahead that you can trace back if you can be bothered.

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Script Challenge solved, finally!

On 4 August 2007, I set a challenge. Could people decipher a passage of English text written in an unknown script? Well yesterday, 66 months later, dario finally posted a solution. Congratulations, Sir!

As I mentioned in my follow-up comment, it turns out that the text wasn’t the work of Ursula K Le Guin as I’d originally thought. Oops. It’s actually a document related to the fantasy universe of Danny, the guy who developed the script. I hope to have more details about that soon.

dario says he’ll eventually post “an analysis of this fascinating script and a report of how I arrived at the solution”. Meanwhile, I’ll be organising a suitable prize for him. Stay tuned.

I’ll close comments on this post. Please feel free to continue the conversation over at the original post.

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Linux.conf.au delays everything else in my life

The lack of posts since 15 January — including still not posting last week’s Weekly Wrap — is the direct result of me spending the entire week covering the Linux.conf.au 2012 conference in Ballarat. I’m exhausted. And today there’s still the War on the Internet forum to cover in Melbourne.

I’m exhausted. So it might be another day or two before I catch up with everything here. As usual, the best way to stay in touch with what I’m doing is my high-volume Twitter stream.