Tag: abc

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Talking hacker arrests on ABC’s “The World Today”

While I was busy writing an op-ed on the LulzSec vs Murdoch saga this morning — and I’ll post more about that momentarily — I got a phone call from ABC Radio’s lunchtime current affairs program The World Today to comment on the FBI’s arrest of alleged Anonymous-connected hackers overnight.

The story is TransAtlantic arrests target hackers, and if you click through you’ll get both transcript and audio. You’ll hear me, as well as Patrick Gray, presenter of the Risky Business podcast on information security. The reporter is Sarah Dingle.

I’d be interested to know what you think of these arrests.

Patrick reckons they arrested nobodies.

This current batch of arrests will “bring to justice” a bunch of people who made no attempt to conceal their actions because they’re either technically useless or just didn’t care.

They’re “low hanging anons”.

But that won’t stop the mainstream media from portraying this as the establishment striking back at online troublemakers.

I reckon that while that may or may not be true, the computers the FBI has just seized will be handy evidence when it comes to tracking down other culprits. After all, their operational security has hardly been world class.

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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

Articles

Media Appearances

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.]

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Google+ gives me grief, generally

It seems to have been my annointed role this week to press back against the rush to join Google+, the new social networking service (SNS) from Google.

It all began when I posted the Patch Monday podcast on, erm, Monday. “Can Google+ kill Facebook? Twitter?” I asked. But as I discussed the potential success of Google+ and its strengths and weaknesses compared with Facebook, I couldn’t help but think…

I don’t want to do this.

Join Google+, that is.

I’d first written about Google+ for Crikey a week and a bit earlier. It was a cranky piece. I speculated that Google would have to come up with something pretty persuasive to get people to migrate from Facebook.

That of course soon triggered one of the usual, predictable comments.

sorry im not on facebook, i dont need to be, i dont have a mobile phone, i really dont need one, i dont have a GPS, i have a brain and know how to get around, hell, i dont even have a watch, i do have a job , im thankfull of that and i do manufacture and retail a product that everyone wants.

… said William Magnusson, who also seems to live without capital letters, apostrophes or the ability to decide when it’s time to end his sentence and start a new one.

I’d expected that. But what I hadn’t expected was much of the reaction to my follow-up Crikey piece, There’s no way I’m handing over data to Google+, and to a lesser extent my ABC The Drum piece, Why rush? Let others find the Google+ privacy landmines.

Continue reading “Google+ gives me grief, generally”

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Talking voicemail hacking on ABC TV’s “7.30”

I was interviewed by ABC TV’s current affairs program 7.30 yesterday for a story about voicemail hacking, More allegations against Murdoch media.

Interestingly, most of the soundbites we recorded were about how easy it is to access someone’s voicemail, but the resulting story was more about whether something like the News of the World scandal could already be happening in Australia.

Recording this piece was a pleasant reminder of working in daily live radio. The pace is kinda fun. The ABC called me at 2.15pm, and arranged for the crew to meet me at 3.15pm. We drove to a nearby park and recorded the main interview as well as the cutaways in a total of 45 minutes. And that was in between the noise of aircraft taking off, motor cycles, and pedestrians and cyclists walking between me and the camera.

I’m shown using both laptop and phone. Does that put me into the category of mouse-using TV expert?

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Talking Myspace on ABC 774 Melbourne

In 2005 Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace, as the orthography went, for USD 580 million. Yesterday he sold the operation, now branded Myspace or even just My_____, depending where you look, for a mere USD 35 million. Not exactly a profit.

The buyer was Specific Media, an advertising targeting company. One of the investors is musician and actor Justin Timberlake, although the size of his stake has not been revealed.

There’s now plenty of speculation about whether Myspace will build on its recent music focus, and how it’ll shape up against the monster that is Facebook and the new contender, Google+.

Yesterday I chatted about all this stuff with Lindy Burns on ABC 774 Melbourne. This time she got my name right.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:33 — 3.8MB)

The audio is ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it hasn’t been posted on their website so here it is. In return, I reckon you might choose to listen to Lindy Burns’ drive program next week.

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Talking Google vs Facebook on ABC Gold Coast

I continue to be fascinated by what I get asked to talk about on the radio. Today it was news about Google, with an amused emphasis on the product names.

The station was ABC Gold Coast, the presenter was Bernadette Young, and producer Nicole Gundi had chosen two specific stories. The Australian’s coverage of the launch of Google+, the competitor to Facebook, and the Herald Sun’s story on the smartphone operating system wars.

Speaking live from the pub at fairly short notice, I managed to wrap a few facts and opinions into the 10-minute interview. And here’s a recording.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:10 — 4.5MB)

This material is ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, presented here as always because the ABC doesn’t post it and it’s a decent plug for them.