Tag: abc

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Talking Trump, Twitter, employee revenge on ABC Adelaide

ABC logoFriday’s news that Donald Trump’s Twitter account had been deactivated for 11 minutes swept the world. No wonder it caught the attention of Peter Goers at ABC Adelaide.

Here’s the resulting 14-minute radio spot. It begins with a chat with Rebecca Fraser from the Career Development Association of Australia, and I’m after that.

I shamelessly steal some material from an article at The Clever, 15 Times Fired Employees Got Revenge On Their Company, which I think I forgot to credit. Sorry.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.4MB)

This audio is ©2017 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Talking trust and the uncanny valley on ABC Melbourne

ABC logoIt’s been a while since I’ve posted the audio from any of my radio spots, but we’re back. Here’s my conversation with Lindy Burns on ABC Melbourne from the evening of 31 October.

Two stories took our fancy.

First was the Australian tour of a supposedly intelligent robot called Sophia. I’m sceptical about how intelligent it actually was, but it gave me an excuse to talk about the uncanny valley, and the early chatbot ELIZA.

Second was the news that Amazon is launching a new service called Amazon Key, which will let couriers open people’s front doors and put deliveries inside. Would you trust strangers to come into your house?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (11.3MB)

This audio is ©2017 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Weekly Wrap 370: One and a half launches and climbing

Taking off for new adventuresMy week of Monday 26 June to Sunday 2 July 2017 was strangely quiet, but also strangely productive. It’s a fine start for the new financial year.

I’m even fixing my broken time-management systems, and that’s just one of the reasons I finally feel like I’m climbing out of a low patch.

Articles

I wrote a second piece for ZDNet, which will be posted on Monday.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday night Australian time, the ransomware known variously as Petya or NotPetya amongst other things, spread across the planet. Inevitably, I ended up talking about it in the media on Wednesday. I did radio spots on 3AW Melbourne, ABC Brisbane (where I also spoke briefly about the €2.4 billion fine copped by Google), ABC Melbourne, and various ABC News reports. I also appeared on Channel TEN’s The Project.

And on Friday evening, I spoke about Australia’s new cyber warfare unit (briefly) and other matters with Peter Goers on ABC Adelaide.

Podcasts, Corporate Largesse

None. Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 370: One and a half launches and climbing”

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Talking end-to-end encryption on ABC RN Breakfast

ABC logoAustralia is opening a new campaign in the seemingly never-ending Cyptowars. This time, the target is end-to-end encryption.

Our favourite attorney-general, Senator George Brandis QC, wants “the cooperation of companies like Apple and Facebook and Google and so on” to help the government break into encrypted communications. That cooperation would presumably extend to messaging apps that use end-to-end encryption, such as WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and so on.

And cooperation would be ensured, thanks to new legal sanctions.

Brandis says he’s not interested in putting mandatory “back door” access into the encryption used by messaging platforms. But how can that be true when he’s asking for the tech companies to be able to provide access to customers’ encrypted messages? That’s exactly what a back door is.

Anyway, this morning I was interviewed on this topic by Fran Kelly on the ABC’s RN Breakfast. We spoke for more than seven minutes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.9MB)

The audio is ©2017 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is being served directly from the ABC website.

For more analysis, try George Brandis’s salvo in cryptowars could blow a hole in architecture of the internet, by the Guardian’s Paul Farrell.

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Weekly Wrap 361: The last pause, I hope

Approaching SingaporeThis Weekly Wrap covers two weeks, Monday 17 to Sunday 30 April 2017, because little happened during this time apart from the continuing throat infection, and grumpiness, and a day off for Anzac Day.

Here’s a list, and a completely unrelated photo.

Articles

Podcasts

None, but I’ll be announcing the next date for The 9pm Edict very soon.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Thursday 20 April, I covered the launch of Australia’s Cyber Security Sector Competitiveness Plan at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and a lovely buffet breakfast was served. This is what generated the article listed above.

The Week Ahead

Monday will be a day of catching up on work and household loose ends as I finally kill this throat infection. And writing this.

On Tuesday, I’m working on the SEKRIT editorial project, then catching a train down to Sydney for The Double Disillusionists podcast recording at Giant Dwarf that evening. I’ll stay in Sydney overnight.

On Wednesday morning, I’ll be covering the half-day conference Cyber Security — the Leadership Imperative 2017, which I daresay I’ll write about before returning to Wentworth Falls.

Thursday through Sunday are as yet unplanned, but I know there’s lots of writing and editing to catch up on. What the daily plans emerge on Twitter.

Further Ahead

I’m covering the AusCERT Information Security Conference on the Gold Coast from 24 to 26 May; the 5th International Conference on Cybercrime and Computer Forensics (ICCCF) on the Gold Coast from 16 to 18 July, or at least I hope; and the national conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) in Sydney on 10 to 12 October.

Update 17 May 2016: Edited to reflect schedule changes.

[Photo: Approaching Singapore, photographed on 6 March 2017 when I was en route from Ho Chi Minh City back to Sydney.]