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29 January 201230 January 2012

Weekly Wrap 86: Linux, paranoia and a few rants

My usual weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers the week from Monday 23 to Sunday 29 January 2012.

This week included the last of my output from Linux.conf.au. I’ve just gathered all of my Linux.conf.au coverage plus selected other people’s in one place for your convenience.

Add this week’s media output to last week’s and you can see why I’ve been kind of exhausted. Thank the gods, we’re having a pseudo-long weekend.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 122, “War on the internet: it’s all about power”. The podcast covers the previous weekend’s War on the Internet forum Electronic Frontiers Australia and The Greens, and featured Suelette Dreyfus, co-author with Assange of Underground; Greens’ Senator Scott Ludlam; Crikey’s Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane; and headline speaker Jacob Appelbaum, internet security researcher, software hacker and activist.

Articles

Collateral damage in the copyright wars, ABC Drum Opinion, 23 January 2012.
Beware the piracy clones, Technology Spectator, 23 January 2012.
Untested buggy UEFI heads for prime-time, ZDNet Australia, 23 January 2012. Also published at TechRepublic.
Ah, the tech-soap that is Apple will run and run, Crikey, 25 January 2012. Warning: This article offends pompous Randroids. Apparently. Fuck ’em.
Linux.conf.au 2012 photos, ZDNet Australia, 25 January 2012. Also published at TechRepublic.
Hacked or not, Ludlam’s a target of spies, ZDNet Australia, 25 January 2012.

Media Appearances

On Saturday I spoke with Sydney radio 2UE about cyberbullying and Rose Smith’s suggestion that children should be made to surrender their mobile phones at night.

Corporate Largesse

D-Link gave me a DCS-930L Wireless N Network Camera, which they sometimes describe as a “cloud camera”, the arsehats. I’ll be writing about that separately.
On Wednesday Chris Wood, regional director for Australia and New Zealand at security vendor Sourcefire, bought me a coffee.

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: Three sprigs at Threefold. Three sprigs of mint in three brown bottles grace the windowsill in the toilet at Melbourne’s Threefold Foodstore and Eatery. I think that’s just a wanked-up word for “cafe”. I had the spatchcock, thank you very much.]

26 January 201227 January 2012

Weeky Wrap 84: Rosellas, cyberwar and lots of radio

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers the week from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 January 2012, posted way late because I’ve been incredibly busy.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 120, “Anonymous vs. Stratfor: the real issues”, being a nice long interview with Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst with IT-Harvest, a privately-held IT security research firm based in Detroit, Michigan. He also edits and publishes the newsletter Cyber Defence Weekly, and is author of the book Surviving Cyberwar.

Articles

The snake oil that is domain registries’ big fat new revenue stream, Crikey, 11 January 2012.

Media Appearances

On Monday I was on ABC NewsRadio talking about generic cyberthreats as sold by the Australian Federal Police, or something.
On Thursday morning ABC Radio National Breakfast had an expert panel on cybersecurity, and I was one of the experts. I suggest you read the daft troll’s comment on this post. It’s a hoot.
On Saturday afternoon I was talking about various online scams on Sydney radio 2UE. They were so happy with this week’s post that I’m now booked in for this Saturday 28 January at 1530 AEDT to talk about trolling.

Corporate Largesse

None. I thought things might start picking up this week, but apparently not.

Elsewhere

[Photo: Rosellas neat Wentworth Falls, photographed near Railway Parade on 17 January 2012.]

12 January 201212 January 2012

Talking cybersecurity on ABC Radio National Breakfast

Actually, this message about cybersecurity being a serious emerging theme for 2012 seems to be getting more mainstream coverage than I thought it would. I was part of a cybersecurity panel discussion that was broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast this morning.

Also taking part were Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest in Detroit (I spoke with him about Anonymous and Stratfor on this week’s Patch Monday podcast), and Sean Kopelke, director of security and compliance solutions at Symantec Australia. The host was Jonathan Green, who is usually editor of ABC The Drum.

Over at the ABC’s website you can find the program audio and (perhaps, eventually) transcript. But I’m also including the audio below, just in case their systems fail.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:35 — 9.5MB)

10 January 201214 January 2012

Talking cyber threats on ABC NewsRadio

The Australian Federal Police were talking up the risk of “cyber threats” in the Fairfax news yesterday morning, so I ended up talking about it on ABC NewsRadio.

Now the AFP was bouncing off a report from McAfee, which from the title I assume is yet another of those “The internet is dangerous, m’kay?” fear pieces. 2012 Threats Predictions. I won’t bother linking, because all these reports from the major infosec vendors are much the same, jumbling together everything from minor vandalism to “cyberterrorism” — whatever the fuck that is — with little critical analysis.

But I suppose it is actually getting this stuff onto the agenda.

Slowly.

For six minutes.

At this point I reckon I should re-link to two of my pieces from the eCrime Symposium held in Canberra in November 2011. eCrime Symposium: Harden up, warns Aussie crime fighter and eCrime Symposium wrap: Satisfaction tinged with frustration.

The presenter was Cathy Bell (who seems to be missing from the station’s page of presenters), the producer Jared Reed.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:31 — 3.1MB)

The audio is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. While the audio was posted shortly after broadcast at the ABC NewsRadio website, I’m going to post it here anyway. It’s easier for me than trawling their automated daily audio archive.

This is being posted a full day after the actual radio appearance, even though the post was ready within an hour of the broadcast. Why? Because I didn’t want it on the website before I’d posted last week’s Weekly Wrap. Is that good editorial judgement? Or just a little bit too anally-retentive?

10 January 2012

Weekly Wrap 83: Ryde, radio and fraudulent moons

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, kicking off with a fraud. Weekly Wrap posts are meant to cover what I did in the Monday-to-Sunday week, but the Full Moon photograph was only taken last night.

Well, the weekend and the start of the new week was a bit more hectic than I expected, and this was the only new photo I’d taken that could be used here. Did you really want to see my photos of taxi receipts?

I’d also intended to write a more reflective introduction, cover what it was like living in the wilds of Ryde for the week. But this post is late enough as it is, so you’ll have to live without it.

Podcasts

None. However the Patch Monday podcast returned yesterday, and I think there might well be an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast some time this week too.

Articles

I know I listed my piece for ABC The Drum on the Anonymous hack of Stratfor in last week’s Weekly Wrap, but it was published in the week covered by this post, so here it is again.

Anonymous imposters: hiding behind the AntiSec identity, ABC Drum Opinion, 2 January 2012.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday I spoke about Rupert Murdoch joining Twitter on ABC Local Radio around the country.
On Wednesday I spoke about the Fidel Castro death hoax spam and related information security issues on ABC 774 Melbourne.
On Sunday evening I spoke about Rupert Murdoch joining Twitter and other social media matters on ABC Local Radio around the country.

Corporate Largesse

None. Again. When will these PR companies actually start work for 2012?

Elsewhere

[Photo: Full Moon over Erskineville, photographed last night from Erskineville Road, Sydney. This is the picture as-is using the “night landscape” program setting on the Nikon Coolpix S8100.]

08 January 201208 January 2012

Talking more Murdoch and Twitter on ABC Local Radio

I thought we were done with Rupert Murdoch’s venture into the Twitterverse, but apparently not so. I was invited back onto ABC Local Radio earlier this evening — for a much wider conversation about Twitter.

As it happens, it’s worth updating this story. Yes, Rupert Murdoch joined Twitter and we’ve been analysing every single tweet as if it’s being delivered on a stone tablet. But while that was happening, Twitter decided to verify not only Murdoch’s Twitter account but the one belonging to his wife Wendi Deng.

Except they verified the wrong one. @Wendi_Deng was a spoof account set up by a chap in London. Business Insider ran a transcript of the fake Deng coming clean, and questions were asked about Twitter’s still-secret verification process.

It should’ve been @wendideng, without the underscore, although as I write this the real account has been taken offline.

Mathew Ingram’s piece at GigaOM summed it up nicely: Why Twitter’s “verified account” failure matters. It’s about trust.

Anyway the ABC Radio conversation wandered well into other matters and hardly touched upon Rupert and Wendi. The pace of news. The appropriateness of Twitter marketing. Potential revenue streams for Twitter. And so on. And so forth.

The Sundays presenter was Jennifer Fleming, who’s filling in for James O’Loghlin over summer. The producer was Siobhan Moylan.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:01 — 10.1MB)