darwin – Stilgherrian

23 December 2016

Talking civil use of metadata on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logo When mandatory telecommunications data retention legislation was first introduced — the so-called “metadata” retention laws — Australia’s favourite Attorney-General Senator George Brandis QC stressed that it wouldn’t be used for civil proceedings. Guess what just happened?

On Tuesday, Brandis’ office announced a review of the laws to see whether retained metadata could be used — wait for it — in civil proceedings.

On Wednesday I wrote about this in a ZDNet column titled Brandis rushes to release telco metadata for civil proceedings.

And on Wednesday afternoon I spoke about it with Kate O’Toole on ABC 105.7 Darwin. Here’s that conversation.

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01 April 2014

Talking ID and security on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logo Yesterday I ended up having a brief chat about identity, security and the concept of federated ID on ABC 105.7 Darwin. Here it is.

Breakfast presenter Richard Margetson had received a message from listener Heather from Tiwi, who’d lost her wallet. Amongst the hassle of having to replace all her cards, it was going to take up to six weeks for her new Medicare card to arrive — although she did get a new Medicare number to use straight away.

Margetson wondered whether technology might fix this. I set him straight.

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01 March 2014

Talking digital copyright on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logo The third radio spot I did about Attorney-General George Brandis’ comments on digital copyright was with ABC 105.7 Darwin on Wednesday 19 February. Here it is.

(“Third” you ask? There’s only been one other posted so far. That’s true. The second spot was with Dom Knight on ABC 702 Sydney on Tuesday 18 February. But I don’t have a recording for you. Sorry.)

This is roughly the same discussion I had on Spoke on Tuesday, but with presenter Kate O’Toole and ~~after I’d drank a bottle of Sangiovese Barbera~~ after I got angrier about the issues. So the concept of graduated response is a thing again, I allude to the iiTrial and so on. And yes I mentioned Rebecca Giblin’s research.

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27 January 201427 January 2014

Talking passwords on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logo When the list of the worst passwords for 2013 did the rounds last week, I’m glad that a few media outlets went beyond mocking those who used them and gave some practical advice.

ABC 105.7 Darwin was one of them. On Thursday morning 23 January I spoke with breakfast presenter Richard Margetson.

While it was a light-hearted chat, we also managed to sneak in the advice: use different passwords for everything important; the longer the password, the better it is; email account passwords are particularly important; use password management software to keep track of them all.

Searching the internet for “how to choose a good password” generally delivers reasonable advice, but I reckon Microsoft’s advice and password checker ain’t too bad.

[Update 1510 AEDT: As Nick Andrew points out, the problem with Microsoft’s password checker is that you’re typing your password into Microsoft’s website — which is obviously a Bad Idea. So my recommendation is to use it to explore how different choices for your password affect its strength, and then choose something different again for your real password based on what you’ve learned.]

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23 April 201323 April 2013

Talking YouTube’s eighth birthday on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logo Today is YouTube’s eighth birthday, according to the internet. On 23 April 2005, co-founder Jawed Karim uloaded the 19-second masterpiece Me at the zoo, and the rest is history.

I ended up having a light-hearted chat about it this afternoon with Richard Margetson on ABC 105.7 Darwin, and here’s the full audio of our conversation.

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08 April 2013

Talking downloading TV on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logo The new series of Game of Thrones was released in the US last week, and even though it was broadcast in Australia on pay TV network Foxtel just two hours later, it was still torrented to buggery. Just how entitled are we?

I ended up discussing this very issue with Kate O’Toole on ABC 105.7 Darwin, and here’s the full audio of our conversation from 4 April 2013. Since I’m way behind schedule, I’ll leave this stand without further comment.

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