I’m quite pleased with my week of Monday 15 to Sunday 21 June 2020. I wrote two articles, both of which were interesting. And I did four radio spots, two of which have had their audio posted here.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 525: Productivity returned, and then there was the Solstice”Talking about Morrison’s cyber scare on ABC Adelaide


On Friday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called a press conference to talk about a “sophisticated nation-state actor” conducting sustained cyber attacks on Australian government and private sector organisations. There’s wasn’t much detail, so why do it? I spoke about that this afternoon with Jules Schiller on ABC Adelaide.
Continue reading “Talking about Morrison’s cyber scare on ABC Adelaide”Weekly Wrap 518: COVIDSafe, cybers, and a lot of wind
Last Sunday the Australian government launched its COVIDSafe contact tracing app, and my week of Monday 26 April to Sunday 3 May 2020 contained a lot talking about it — for which I’m not paid of course. However my writing for ZDNet was about longer-term issues of national cyber resilience and diplomacy. Mostly.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 518: COVIDSafe, cybers, and a lot of wind”Weekly Wrap 499: More podcast, more smoke, more concern about revenue
Monday 16 to Sunday 22 December 2019 was another week when Sydney’s sky was drenched in bushfire smoke. My belly cleared, I got a podcast done, and the podcast was good. I am pleased.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 499: More podcast, more smoke, more concern about revenue”Weekly Wrap 464: Bunny and Banksia, with cybers
Monday 15 to Sunday 21 April 2019 was a remarkably productive week, despite there being only four working days. Two articles and a podcast! Even though there was also time out for medical appointments down in Sydney.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 464: Bunny and Banksia, with cybers”Weekly Wrap 437: Cybering for two weeks in two countries
My fortnight of Monday 1 to Sunday 14 October 2018 was spent in The America and then in the Melbourne. I’m exhausted. But it was all quite productive.
Articles
- No Russian interference yet in US midterm elections: FireEye, ZDNet Australia, 4 October 2018. Interesting analysis. The first of three stories from the FireEye Cyber Defense Summit.
- America the ‘indispensable nation’ for cybersecurity: Madeleine Albright, ZDNet Australia, 4 October 2018.
- North Korea is the most destructive cyber threat right now: FireEye, ZDNet Australia, 5 October 2018. The key word here is “destructive”. When discovered, the DPRK hackers tent to trash everything in sight.
- My Health Record justifications ‘kind of lame’: Godwin, ZDNet Australia, 10 October 2018.
- UK’s NCSC to monitor internet routing to stop DDoS and hijacks, ZDNet Australia, 12 October 2018. An update on the NCSC’s impressive Active Cyber Defence work.
Podcasts
None published. But as well as the long conversation with Nicholas Fryer that we recorded in Adelaide two weeks ago, in DC I recorded a long interview with the remarkable Mike Godwin, creator of Godwin’s Law amongst many other things. Both of those podcasts will be posted some time in the coming week.
Media Appearances
None, which is unusual.
Corporate Largesse
- My flights to the US and the related accommodation were covered by FireEye.
- At the Australian Cyber Conference on 10–11 October there was plenty of food and drink, courtesy of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) and their sponsors. AusCERT: A branded SyncStop “USB Condom” to protect my devices while charging from random USB ports; Tenable: a copy of Cyber Exposure for Dummies; ThreatQuotient: A stress rhinoceros, leading Benno Rice to coin the euphemism “Squeezing the rhino”; Tripwire: Three t-shirts bearing the slogan “I didn’t start the fire”; Yubico: A YubiKey NEO authentication device.
The Week Ahead
On Monday, I’m back in Sydney, where I’ll be dealing with a couple of medical things, sorting through my notes and pitching some stories, and ending the day with some social life, before taking the train back to Wentworth Falls.
Tuesday through Thursday will be about writing for ZDNet and editing podcasts. I’ll plan that out as I go.
Friday is another Sydney day, with the usual mix of medical and work appointments, plus whatever remains to be done. I’m looking forward to having a lazy weekend.
Further Ahead
The following week I’m spending a bunch of time in Sydney covering the Sibos global financial services conference on 22–25 October. That’ll keep me pretty busy, so Friday through Sunday will be more laid-back.
Beyond that:
- McAfee MPOWER Cyber Security Summit, Sydney, 30 October.
- International Association of Privacy Professionals ANZ (iappANZ) Annual Summit, Privacy: Handling the Seismic Shift, Melbourne, 1 November. (Tentative)
[Photo: The White House. You know what this is. Photographed on the foggy Sunday morning of 7 October 2018.]