Weekly Wrap – Page 112

21 August 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 10 and 11

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Well, a fortnightly summary today, because I forgot to do a post like this last week. Sigh.

Actually, a lot of this relates to the federal election here in Australia, so you’d better digest it all now before you vote today. Hurry up!

Articles

The broadband battle: what will they really deliver? for Crikey, explaining the two rather different broadband policies on offer in today’s election from Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition.
Coalition broadband: a wireless tower in every street for Crikey, quoting some material from the Patch Monday podcast about how wireless broadband works and what it would require to deliver fibre-equivalent services via wireless.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 52, “Media laws dying for digital update” with guest Peter Black from the Queensland University of Technology.
Patch Monday episode 53, “Understanding the broadband election” with guest Narelle Clark, a network engineering consultant who’s most recent gig was as research director of the CSIRO’s Networking Technologies Laboratory. She’s also vice-president of the Internet Society of Australia and on the board of trustees for the Internet Society globally.
A Series of Tubes episode 115. Host Richard Chirgwin talks with Anup Changaroth of Ciena Networks about gigabit fibre networks, the product life cycle, and the value of Layer 2 carrier networks, and me about broadband policy.

Media Appearances

Talking Twitter and the election on Syn Radio.
Email is dead, what next?, the TechLines webcast in which I’m on-screen for about a minute as I ask a question near the end of the program.

[Photo: Tights are not pants, Enmore Road. Further proof, Ladies, that tights are indeed not pants. Not even if you’re also wearing heels.]

06 August 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 9

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — and this week there’s been a lot of it!

Articles

Gay marriage an irrelevant sideshow, for ABC Unleashed. I reckon the way “the gay and lesbian community” abused Senator Penny Wong for simply re-stating Labor policy was disgusting. Did they really expect her to break ranks and criticise her party’s policy just because some random punter asked her a question on Q&A?
AFACT didnâ€™t explain notices to iiNet for ZDNet.com.au. On Wednesday I covered day three of the Federal Court appeal by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft in their case against Australia’s third-largest ISP. This is straight reportage of the morning’s proceedings.
Will AFACTâ€™s appeal solve anything? for ZDNet.com.au. On Thursday, I wrote this op-ed piece, picking up on one of the appeal judge’s comments about this appeal not necessarily solving anything long-term.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 51, “Data breaches: it’s criminals again” with guest Brad Arkin, who Mark Goudie, who heads up the forensics practice for Verizon Business Asia-Pacific in Melbourne. We discuss Verizon’s 2010 Data Breach Investigations Report [PDF].
A Series of Tubes episode 114. Host Richard Chirgwin talks with APNIC Chief Scientist Geoff Houston about the impending exhaustion of IPv4 internet addresses, and me about the AFACT v iiNet appeal, the demise of Google Wave, and a few political things.

Media Appearances

Our nod to the federal election campaign and an update on Gov 2.0 initiatives, an episode of ABC Radio National’s Future Tense in which I reiterate some of my Crikey comments the lameness of Australian politicians using social media.

[Photo: The view from Courtroom 1, Federal Court of Australia, Sydney, photographed on 4 August 2010. The brown smudges are not on your screen: the windows need cleaning from the outside.]

31 July 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 8

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets.

Articles

The internet taking a back seat during the campaign for Crikey. Looking back at the first week of the federal election campaign and how the politicians used this “new” internet thing, it really was boring.
Let’s blame Facebook again, shall we? for ABC Unleashed. A woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a man she met via a social networking service and later allowed to stay in her home overnight. Once more, social networking sites are portrayed as evil.
A new cable brings the promise of more internet capacity for Crikey. Australasian consortium Pacific Fibre announced that they’re joining forces with Pacnet to build a 5.12 terabit per second undersea cable from Sydney to Los Angeles via Auckland. It’ll pretty much double Australia’s international data capacity when it goes live in 2013.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 50, “Security lessons from Adobe Reader” with guest Brad Arkin, who heads up security and privacy at Adobe. The next version of Adobe Reader for Windows to be released later this year will include a “sandbox”, making it much more resistant to certain kinds of attacks.

Media Appearances

On Thursday afternoon I did a quick spot on ABC Radio Statewide NSW with Paul Turton, talking about, of all things, running out of IP addresses, DNSSEC and this mangled story about the seven secret people who can reboot the internet. Alas, this isn’t podcast anywhere.
On Friday I recorded an interview with ABC Radio National’s Future Tense which will be broadcast next Thursday.

[Photo: Circular Quay viewed from the railway station, photographed on 27 July 2010. We really do take this view for granted.]

24 July 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 7

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets.

Articles

‘Open Government’ declared in Australia for Crikey. Buried in the news just before the Australian election was called last weekend, Lindsay Tanner, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, issued the Declaration of Open Government which had been called for by the Government 2.0 Taskforce. Someone ought to tell the Attorney-General’s Department.
Two other articles have been written but are still in the production pipeline, one for Crikey and one for ABC Unleashed. And I’ve been researching a 2000-word feature for ZDNet Australia. So I’ve been very busy, you just haven’t seen the output yet.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 49, “The software patent controversy explained” with guest Kimberlee Weatherall. She teaches intellectual property law at the University of Queensland.
A Series of Tubes episode 112, in which I chat with Richard Chirgwin about the Declaration of Open Government, the Privacy Commissionerâ€™s findings on the Google Street View Wi-Fi incident, and how the Pirate Party fell at the first hurdle. Also, Internode’s John Lindsay explains the class action they and iiNet are involved with concerning Testra’s wholesale ADSL2+ pricing, and Steve Chung, consultant at Ruckus Wireless, talks about Wi-Fi privacy.

Media Appearances

On Monday afternoon I did a quick spot on ABC Radio Statewide NSW with Paul Turton, talking about Opera Australia’s plan to encourage Twitter users to tweet reviews of their performances. Alas, this isn’t podcast anywhere.

[Photo: “Paddy Maguire’s Hotel“, at the corner of George and Hay Streets, Haymarket, Sydney, taken from a bus window on 23 July 2010.]

17 July 201030 October 2011

Weekly Wrap 6

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets.

Articles

Crikey Clarifier: What is cloud computing? for Crikey. They needed a quick overview of the whole concept, given that it blipped up in the Australian Financial Review as the Next Big Thing.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 48 in which I chat about “Conroy’s filter masterstroke”. With an election due to be announced today, Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, has I think succeeded in taking the toxic topic of ISP-level internet filtering off the table by announcing a comprehensive review of the Refused Classification category. I chat through the implications with Peter Black, who teaches internet law at the Queensland University of Technology.
The interview I recorded last week for A Series of Tubes will be scrapped, as events have moved on. There will be an episode next week, ‘cos we’ve booked a recording session for Tuesday morning.

[Photo: “Blurry at Museum station“, Sydney, taken on 14 July 2010.]

10 July 201013 June 2011

Weekly Wrap 5

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. I didn’t intend for this to be my only post this week, but that’s how it turns out sometimes.

Articles

Filter delay: backtracking or backburning? for ABC Unleashed, my summary and commentary on yesterday’s announcement by Senator Stephen Conroy of the Outcome of consultations on transparency and accountability for ISP filtering and a review of the Refused Classification category.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 47 in which I chat with Greens Senator Scott Ludlam about the Senate inquiry into the adequacy of protections for the privacy of Australians online, and to Gunther Bloemen from Verizon Business on the European Directive on Data Retention. The latter is being discussed as a potential model for Australia.
I recorded an interview for an episode of A Series of Tubes but it hasn’t emerged yet.

Media Appearances

The Future of News Reporting, a webcast panel discussion for Viocorp along with Gaven Morris, Head of Continuous News, ABC; Eric Beecher, publisher of Crikey; Mark Hollands, Chief Executive of PANPA; and Sam North, Media Director at Ogilvy Public Relations; and moderator Mark Jones. You can watch the one-hour webcast on demand, free registration required.
Internet filter postponed for more review, a story on ABC TV’s Lateline, 9 July 2010. I have a brief appearance in this news story as a “technology blogger”. I’m always amused at the variation in how I’m billed. The MP4 video of this individual story will be available for around a week.

[Photo: “Waiting for Conroy“, taken at Senator Stephen Conroy’s ministerial media conference at the offices of NBN Co Ltd, North Sydney, 8 July 2010.]