Category: Politics

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Talking downloading TV on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logoThe new series of Game of Thrones was released in the US last week, and even though it was broadcast in Australia on pay TV network Foxtel just two hours later, it was still torrented to buggery. Just how entitled are we?

I ended up discussing this very issue with Kate O’Toole on ABC 105.7 Darwin, and here’s the full audio of our conversation from 4 April 2013. Since I’m way behind schedule, I’ll leave this stand without further comment.

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

The audio is ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it isn’t published anywhere else and I don’t get paid so here it is.

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Algorithms and the Filter Bubble

Title slide: Algorithms and the Filter BubbleHere’s the guest lecture I delivered at the University of Technology Sydney on 25 March 2012, “Algorithms and the Filter Bubble”. Full audio and slides for now, a transcript to follow in the next few days.

You might want to read the background material first. You’ll definitely want to look at the slides while listening to the audio.

The recording picks up immediately after I was introduced by lecturer, Dr Belinda Middleweek, using the opening paragraphs of my about page.

The audience was primarily first and second year students at the beginning of their media studies degrees. It seems that almost all of this material was brand new to them — though I did notice one geeky-looking lad nodding enthusiastically at mention of some of the more pervasive tracking techniques.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:07 — 32.6MB)

[When the transcript becomes available, this is where it will appear.]

This work is made available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. This presentation may be re-used for non-commercial purposes within the terms of the Creative Commons license. The non-commercial and share-alike conditions are required to adhere to the licensing of the imagery used. Please contact me if you require an alternative version. As a minimum, attribution should read: “Source: Stilgherrian.” Online versions must link the word Stilgherrian to the website at stilgherrian.com.

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

Screenshot from ABC TV's The BusinessA 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 (12.0MB)

If the embedded video doesn’t work, try the version at the ABC’s website. In both cases the video is ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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.

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Talking Yahoo!, Summly and more on ABC Local Radio

ABC logoThe $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 (10.5MB)

The audio is of course ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, archived here because it isn’t being archived anywhere else.

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Algorithms and the Filter Bubble: UTS guest lecture

Diagram of the Australian political Twitterverse: click for article "Twitter mapping and how we choose our own adventure"On Monday I’m delivering a guest lecture at the University of Technology Sydney. “Algorithms and the Filter Bubble” is the supplied title, and in theory I’ll be looking at Google (and friends), big data and personalised news filtering.

The students — who are, I’m told, “first and second year students who are at the beginning of their media studies degrees” — have been given some pre-reading: Eli Pariser’s book The filter bubble: what the Internet is hiding from you (specifically the chapter “The User is the Content”, pages 47-76 in the edition I’ve seen; check the Wikipedia summary), and David Beer’s paper “Power through the algorithm? Participatory web cultures and the technological unconscious”. I’m about to read them myself.

But I reckon the bleeding-edge action here is in advertising, not news, and especially the comprehensive data mining that allows, for example, Target in the US to figure out that a woman is pregnant just by her shopping list.

After I discussed these topics with the lecturer, I sent her a list of related material I’d written. I believe this has been sent to the students.

I also linked to my presentation at Consilium 2012: Social media is destroying society? Good!

Since then, ProPublica has posted an excellent article, Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You.

I don’t know if non-students are allowed in, but the lecture is on Monday 25 March at 1300 AEDT in Room 56, Level 3, Building 6 (Peter Johnson Building), University of Technology Sydney, 702-730 Harris Street, Ultimo. In any event, I’ll be recording it and will post the audio and transcript here in due course.

For now, though, I suppose I should write the damn thing.

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Talking crimefighting smartphones on The Project

Screenshot of Stilgherrian on The Project, 14 March 2013The 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.

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