Tag: cso

Posted on

No Canberra for cyberwar after all

As it happens, I didn’t end up going to the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference in Canberra this week. The conference sessions weren’t open to the media, and I decided that it wasn’t worth the trip if we’d have to rely on second-hand information.

That said, we did manage to get a recording of the over-dinner speech by David Irvine, the director-general of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which Liam Tung turned into the story “Insidious” cyber chaos too fast for ASIO. It also served as part of the inspiration for my story Yet another free pass for Aussie spooks.

Who wants to go to Canberra anyway?

However SC Magazine did send Darren Pauli and John Hilvert, and their stories were:

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 66: Kuala Lumpur: haze, hackers, food aplenty

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Most of the week was spent in Kuala Lumpur, my first visit. I’ll write more about that anon.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 104, “Can security ever beat PEBKAC?”. A conversation with Paul Ducklin, head of technology for the Asia-Pacific region with Sophos, and Chris Gatford, proprietor of Hack Labs, a specialist in penetration testing.

Articles

Further material from the Kaspersky Lab event is appearing from today.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I had lunch at Ocean Restaurant, Cockle Bay Wharf, thanks to Check Point. There’s some material from the conversations there that will appear in the next few days.
  • On Tuesday night I travelled to Kuala Lumpur thanks to Kasperky Lab. Their largesse included flights and airport transfers; meals and accommodation at Le Meridien; an evening sightseeing trip to Putrajaya including dinner on a cruise boat; a Kaspersky-branded leather document case, rather nice actually; Kaspersky-branded USB-powered speakers; and a t-shirt. I declined the offer of an all-day sightseeing tour on Friday because I had work to do.

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: Kuala Lumpur skyline, shrouded in haze, photographed with my battered HTC Desire from the 14th floor of Le Meridien, KL Sentral. It’s like this pretty much all day, what with the Indonesians burning down the rainforests and all. The photo doesn’t do the scene justice. I have since obtained a decent camera.]

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 65: Better late than never, perhaps

A supposedly-weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers Monday 29 August to Sunday 4 September 2011, a week during which I was so mentally exhausted I needed to take a bit of a break — hence the relatively low level of media output.

I also did about a day’s worth of geek-for-hire stuff for some long-standing clients. That was primarily web development, not the sort of thing I detail here unless there’s something interesting to show you.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 103, “Google’s real names a real disaster”. A conversation with Kirrily “Skud” Robert, about which I have already written stuff.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None.

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.

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 64: Unexpected schedule changes

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. The balance of the week felt right, but Mistress Insomnia certainly made her presence felt.

My schedule also changed a lot this week, and I ended up spending the entire time in Sydney. I return to Wentworth Falls tomorrow.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 102, “Political, economic hacking needs attention”. An interview with Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee, and author of Revealed: Operation Shady RAT (PDF), which exposed a hacking operation that had compromised 72 organisations.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Wednesday I spoke with Keith Conlon and John Kenneally on Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa about the 20th anniversary of the web and what the future might hold.
  • On Thursday I spoke with Bernadette Young on ABC Gold Coast about the resignation of Steve Jobs. The recording failed part-way through, so I haven’t posted it here. But I will if you want me to.
  • Also on Thursday I spoke with Tom Elliott on Melbourne radio 3AW, also about Steve Jobs. I’ve already posted a recording.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I attended the Security 2011 Expo & Conference at Darling Harbour. As is usual for when one has a media pass to such events, I was given free food and drink.
  • Also on Wednesday I went to Text 100’s Christmas in August Event. Text 100 is a PR firm, and Christmas in August is where their clients show off their new consumer gadgetry that’ll be on sale for Christmas. The food and drink was free. And copious. Too copious. Way too copious.

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: Leichhardt Town Hall, Sydney. I wasn’t in Leichhardt at all this week. This photo was taken on 17 July 2011. I didn’t have any photos from this week that were suitable.]

Posted on

Covering the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference

As soon as I arrive back from my trip to Kuala Lumpur on 13 September, I’m off to Canberra for the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference on 14 and 15 September. No I won’t be. See the comments.

I’m covering it for CSO Online, and for the moment I’m assuming that’ll be in the form of written material. I’d also like to cover it for the Patch Monday podcast, but I don’t think that’ll be possible due to the contractual arrangements.

The event itself runs for a day and a half. An afternoon of presentations followed by a day of roundtable discussions. I’m looking forward to it.

If there’s anything else happening in Canberra either side of this event, please let me know so I can plan to attend,

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 63: I’m lichen it a lot

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This week was closer to normal than some others, assuming that I have normal weeks. And this post is only one day late.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 101, “There are no NBN apps: Turnbull”. Malcolm Turnbull discusses his Coalition plan for broadband.

Articles

Media Appearances

None. Well, my presentation at the Local Government Web Network conference on Thursday was sort of a media thing, but not quite. And in any event I will post the thing here some time later today.

Corporate Largesse

None. Again.

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: Lichen on the platform at Lawson station in the Blue Mountains, around 95km west of Sydney.]