abc – Page 24 – Stilgherrian

21 April 201429 May 2014

Talking lots of things on ABC Download This Show

ABC logo This week saw my first appearance on ABC Radio National’s Download This Show for 2014. Presenter Marc Fennell made the grave mistake of putting me and Claire Porter, editor-a-large of Techly, in the same place at the same time. Chaos ensued.

“Killing Comic Sans, SELFIE Mirror, Password Managers” is the headline for this episode.

Comic Sans comeback: Created for Microsoft in the mid-90s, Comic Sans might just be the internet’s most-hated font. But this week we meet the guy who’s trying to save its reputation and reintroduce Comic Sans to a new generation, by making it look cool. In light of the software bug Heartbleed, we examine password managers and ask are they the safest way to manage your security online? And it’s a contender for the weirdest high-tech gadget yet: the mirror that automatically takes a selfie.

Here’s the full program.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.7MB)

[Photo: Stilgherrian, Marc Fennell and Claire Porter in the ABC studios, 17 April 2014.]

15 April 201415 April 2014

Talking smartphone privacy on ABC Radio’s “Life Matters”

A few weeks back, I had a conversation on Twitter with Natasha Mitchell, presenter of ABC Radio National’s Life Matters, about smartphones and just how much data they’re handing on to, well, all manner of organisations. This morning we came back to that conversation live on national radio.

Do you know what data you’re really sharing, and with whom, when you download and use smart phone apps? Companies are collecting as much as they can get away with, says Stilgherrian.

We spoke for 20 minutes and covered a lot of territory.

If you want to know more, then you can listen to my guest lecture at University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and then follow the links to more than 30 references.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.5MB)

14 April 201414 April 2014

Talking Heartbleed on ABC 774 Melbourne, ABC 720 Perth

ABC logo Another day, another Heartbleed-related radio spot. This one was on ABC Radio 774 Melbourne, 720 Perth, and local stations throughout Victoria and Western Australia.

This conversation with presenter Prue Bentley was a straightforward explainer. It contains the current state of play in terms of what we believe, so if you only want to listen to one then make it this one. Unless there’s a more recent one on the site somewhere.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.6MB)

13 April 201414 April 2014

Talking Heartbleed and social media on ABC 702 Sydney

There’s something rather cool about being introduced with the Mission: Impossible theme, and that’s precisely what happened when I did a spot for ABC 702 Sydney on Friday morning.

The Heartbleed security bug was one topic, obviously, but I also spoke with breakfast presenter Robbie Buck about another story in the news that morning, about radio presenter and activist Vanessa Powell, who’d complained that Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) had been, as she put it, spying on her social media activities.

Or, as I put it, that they’d been reading what she published on the internet — just as, presumably, she’d been reading what they published on the internet. That they’d gathered her comments with some semi-automated process — and, presumably, she hadn’t gathered theirs the same way — to me says “naivety” rather than “victim of sinister conspiracy”.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.5MB)

13 April 2014

Taking Heartbleed on ABC Radio “The World Today”

ABC logo By Thursday, news of the Heartbleed security bug had permeated from the technical press and the odd radio talk show into mainstream current affairs.

And so it was that ABC Radio’s Will Ockenden spoke to me for a story on the lunchtime current affairs program, The World Today.

Online security experts are warning today that nearly every user of the web over the last two years is exposed to a security bug sweeping the internet. Known as Heartbleed, the bug is a serious vulnerability in a piece of encryption software which secures data on nearly two in three web servers. It’s now a race between the server administrators and hackers to either fix the software in time or come under attack.

Here’s the full story, served directly from the ABC website, where you can also read the transcript.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.1MB)

13 April 201413 April 2014

Talking copyright infringement on ABC 720 Perth

ABC logo Another series of Game of Thrones is released, which means another series of radio spots talking about Australia’s reputation for (allegedly) massive levels of illegal downloads.

This spot is from Tuesday 8 April, a chat with ABC 720 Perth afternoon presenter Gillian O’Shaughnessy, triggered by the news that the first episode of Game of Thrones series four had seen record levels of illegal downloads, with Perth topping the list — although Angus Kidman at Lifehacker disagrees.

One highlight of this conversation is when I suggest that the entire Australian content distribution industry should just get out of the way, retire and go play on their yachts.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.7MB)