A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. It was another massive week of writing this week, including a trip to Melbourne.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 60: Media whoredom continues”Weekly Wrap 59: Making paragraphs while the rain pours
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. While Sydney dealt with its wettest July since 1950, I was at the Bunjaree Cottages in Wentworth Falls, writing and writing and writing and writing. And talking on the radio.
“Make hay while the sun shines,” goes the old saying. But for a writer, it’s about making paragraphs while the rain pours. Being stuck indoors with a magnificent view really helps.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 97, “Amazon’s Vogels: cloud, start-ups, treadmills” My guest is Amazon’s chief technology officer, Dr Werner Vogels. A fascinating conversation, I found.
Articles
- LulzSec hacks UK’s “The Sun”, News International, CSO, 19 July 2011.
- LulzSec 1, Murdoch 0: News Int, the hacker, becomes the hacked, Crikey, 19 July 2011.
- NEXTDC leases secure Canberra data centre, CSO, 19 July 2011.
- Child exploitation material filters… same policy, different activities, Crikey, 20 July 2011. It’s perhaps not obvious from the headline, but this is about the “voluntary” blocking of child abuse material by Australian internet service providers.
- Four lessons from LulzSec vs Murdoch, CSO, 20 July 2011. I argue that despite the hacking of The Sun having such a high profile, nothing will actually change.
- Australia to consider right-to-privacy law, CSO, 21 July 2011.
- Watchdogs welcome Australia’s right-to-privacy move , CSO, 21 July 2011.
- Hackers target Tasmanian government website, CSO, 21 July 2011.
- Guardian tech editor leaking information, claims LulzSec, CSO, 22 July 2011.
- In IT’s dance of the inflating elephants, Microsoft is stumbling, Crikey, 22 July 2011.
- DSD: Four mitigation strategies prevent 85% of intrusions, CSO, 23 July 2011.
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday I spoke about LulzSec vs Murdoch on ABC 774 Melbourne.
- On Wednesday I spoke with ABC Radio’s national lunchtime current affairs program The World Today about the FBI’s arrest allegedly Anonymous-connected hackers.
- On Thursday I spoke with Louise Saunders on ABC 936 Hobart about the hack of a Tasmanian government web server.
Corporate Largesse
None. But there’ll be plenty next week. I’ll tell you more about that later this morning.
Elsewhere
Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.
[Photo: Potholes on Frenchmans Road, Wentworth Falls, photographed on 20 July 2011. This is a slightly modified version, here’s the original.]
Weekly Wrap 58
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Most of it seemed to be about Google+.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 96, “Can Google+ kill Facebook? Twitter?” My guests were social computing and business futures consultant Kate Carruthers, Digital Citizens founder James Fridley, and freelance journalist and blogger Neerav Bhatt.
Articles
- There’s no way I’m handing over data to Google+, for Crikey.
- Online crime under-reported, under-researched, for CSO.
- Amazon AWS algorithms watch for cloud-based hacks, for CSO, which includes material from my interview with Amazon’s chief technology officer Dr Werner Vogels.
- Why rush? Let others find the Google+ privacy landmines, for ABC Drum Opinion.
- Quintet nations agree on cybercrime action plan, for CSO. It seems the same five Anglosphere nations that have been sharing intelligence since WWII still consider themselves a unit.
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday I was interviewed by ABC TV’s 7.30 for their story on voicemail hacking at News of the World. I wrote about that already.
- On Friday I was interviewed on the same topic by Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa.
Corporate Largesse
- While attending the AWS Cloud Tour 2011 on Thursday, I received ample food and drink at Amazon’s expense.
- On Friday I met with analyst Arun Chandrasekaran from Frost & Sullivan. He paid for the coffee and juice.
- On Friday I had another extremely long lunch with those unnamed people about that unnamed media project, but this time I managed to find my way back to where I was meant to be spending the night.
Elsewhere
Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.
[Photo: Kent Street, Sydney, photographed on Friday 15 July 2011.]
[Update 7pm: I didn’t think that last article for CSO would be posted today, but it was, so I’ve added it to the “Articles” list.]
Weekly Wrap 57
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Last week I said something’s gotta give. This week it gave.
Stress and exhaustion and a much lower productivity level than the previous two weeks has led to this post being two days late.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 95, “Malware? It’s just business!” Malware, these days, is so good that it simply has to be produced by professional development teams. As Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of AVG, explains, malware is distributed automatically, and runs on millions of target computers without causing any visible signs that something bad is happening.
Articles
- Air-gap security an “enduring fairy tale”: Byres, for CSO. Further commentary on the security of industrial control systems from Eric Byres, essentially a follow-up to my Son of Stuxnet within a year: expert for ZDNet Australia.
- Cyber threats the focus for Quintet of Attorneys-General, for CSO.
Media Appearances
None.
Corporate Largesse
- On Monday 4 July I had an extremely long lunch with people who are continuing their interest in having me work with them on a forthcoming media project. I still can’t say much, except I will drop in one word: Television.
Elsewhere
Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.
[Photo: The Wilds of Lilyfield, the view eastwards towards the Sydney CBD from the corner of Lilyfield and Balmain Roads.]
Not dead
Goodness. Nothing posted in more than a week. Not even a Weekly Wrap! I am aware of this. You’ll get a Weekly Wrap late today, and something new tomorrow.
Weekly Wrap 56
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Last week was busy enough, but this week was even busier. Something’s gotta give.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 94, “ISP filtering goes ‘voluntary'”. Even though Australia’s controversial mandatory internet filtering program is at least two years away from being implemented, internet service providers will soon start filtering child exploitation material on a voluntary basis. My guests are Peter Black, who teaches internet and media law at the Queensland University of Technology; Network engineer Mark Newton; Lyle Shelton, chief of staff of the Australian Christian Lobby.
Articles
- The only NBN monopoly seems to be on ignorance, for ABC Drum Opinion. My response to opponents of the National Broadband Network claiming that it’ll destroy competition in the telecommunications industry.
- Internet filtering isn’t compulsory, but everyone will volunteer, for Crikey, covering the recent news the “voluntary” of filtering of the internet will soon begin in Australia, covering child exploitation material only.
- Voluntary filtering removes the controversy, for CSO. In this op-ed I explain how the voluntary filtering makes sense technically and politically, if not necessarily for effective child protection.
- Drug spam rules, thanks to WikiPharmacy: Symantec, for CSO. It’s a shame I didn’t notice that my headline is a crash blossom.
- If Facebook killed Myspace will Google+ kill THE social network? Crikey. At rather short notice, when I’d already been up very early to wrote two other articles, I was asked to write a piece covering the news of both Google launching Google+ and Myspace being sold for UD 35 million and how that’d affect Facebook. This is what resulted.
- Interpol blacklist goes live in Canberra, for ZDNet Australia. “Voluntary” internet filtering started on Friday.
Media Appearances
Two radio spots this week, and a guest appearance on someone else’s podcast.
- On Wednesday I spoke with ABC Gold Coast about Google+ and how it’ll affect Facebook. There’s audio at the link.
- On Thursday I was talking about information security for business on Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast.
- On Friday I was talking about Myspace, Google+ and Facebook on ABC 774 Melbourne. Again, there’s audio at the link.
Corporate Largesse
None. I am reliably informed that the drought will be broken next week.
Elsewhere
Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.
[Photo: A misty dawn at Bunjaree Cottages, 1 July 2011. This is the view from Roselle Cottage, not normally rented to the punters. The much-battered camera in my phone does not do this scene justice.]





