btalk – Stilgherrian

09 August 2011

Weekly Wrap 61: Exhaustion in the forest

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, two days late and without a picture. After the intensity of the previous three weeks, I’d predicted a slow-down, and here it is. I was simply exhausted last week, and spent a couple of days staring at the eucalypts from Rosella Cottage.

Last week also marked six months since I moved from Enmore. Living at Bunjaree Cottages was originally intended to be a temporary measure, or so I thought. I’ve ended up settling into the routine quite well, though I’ve found it impossible to save money for moving house. That said, I’m really not sure where I want to live now. But that’s a story for another time. Maybe later today.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 99, “When apps go wild: beyond the SOE”. Dr Paul Ashley from IBM’s Gold Coast Security Development Laboratory talks about their new technology that sniffs packets to identify applications, and Neil Readshaw, cloud security lead architect with IBM Global Services, talks about, erm, cloud security.

Articles

High-profile hacks distract attention from serious threats: Sophos, CSO, 2 August 2011.
Is voluntary internet filtering a crime?, Crikey, 4 August 2011.
Pure Hacking’s PureWAF managed firewall wins iAward, CSO, 5 August 2011.

Media Appearances

On Thursday I appeared with Paul Wallbank on Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast, an episode called Google Plus, Inside Out. I got to spout my anti-Google stuff again.
Also on Thursday, I made a small appearance on Phil Dobbie’s Twisted Wire podcast. The episode was called The battle for mobile dominance, and if I remember correctly I gave some sort of opinion about Apple iOS versus Android versus Nokia.

Corporate Largesse

None. What is going on here?

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.

03 July 201103 July 2011

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 isnâ€™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

[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.]

30 June 2011

Talking business information security on BTalk podcast

Yesterday I was the guest on Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast at BNet Australia, a CBS Interactive masthead. The topic? Information security for small business.

I covered quite a bit of stuff fairly quickly. The state of anti-banking malware. Virus protection for smartphones. Password management. Encrypting you hard drives. Mandatory data breach notification laws. And more.

You can see the podcast in its written context as a BNet blog post, A Security Breach is Only a Matter of Time. Or you can just listen below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.0MB)

25 June 201117 August 2012

Busy week, much media, and some changes

What a week! I’ve written five articles. Another two are due for Monday. I’ve done my usual Patch Monday podcast. I’ve done five radio appearances on five different topics. I’ve been interviewed for Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast, and that’ll appear next week.

I’ve even been interviewed by an anthropologist for his PhD project. I’m talking to a new editor about more writing. And even — this is weird — to a television production company about a TV project.

That all comes after a month or, really, six weeks or more of travel, intense work, intense and deeply personal events and the tightly-tangled ball of stress, depression and anxiety that can trigger. Which it did.

I’m knackered.

And there’s still plenty of work to do and decisions to make over the next couple of weeks.

I mention all this for a variety of reasons…

While I do have Weekly Wrap posts, I’ll also do individual posts linking to things like major articles and radio spots. This should make it easier for people to find things they’re interested in, and quite frankly it’s better Google juice. It also gives me more of an opportunity to reflect on each item — like adding a quick personal view to supplement a story that was a straight-news piece.
There’s about to be a flurry of small posts as I process the week’s radio spots. Consider that a warning.
I wanted to post at least part of the background before more reflective posts started appearing. I haven’t written much from a deeply personal perspective lately — certainly not like the essays that I was doing a couple years back. This is part of the head-clearing process before I return to that.

I write in so many places these days — ZDNet Australia, Crikey, Technology Spectator, ABC’s The Drum, even occasionally at places like CRN Australia. And, as I mentioned, there’s probably more to come. That’s all writing for other people.

This here is my place, and it’ll be about writing for me.

No, I’m not sure what form that’ll take.

I’m not sure what it even means.

Do those bullet points flow from the intro? No, not really. But that’s where my head is this morning. I’m sure things will become clearer as the day unfolds.

[Photo: That’s me (embiggen) photographed with my webcam just now at Rosella Cottage, the somewhat bigger house that’s the “family home” of the owners of Bunjaree Cottages. It isn’t normally rented out to punters. I’ve been here at the cottages alone for a week, and I haven’t bothered shaving. I’m staring to look like I did before ’Pong and I shot that short film The Shave back in 2008. It’s not a good look.]