Tag: ebay

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Talking internet security on ABC Radio Overnights

ABC logoThere’s a reason I’m firing off all these blog posts so early. I’ve been up since 0300 this morning, because at 0400 I was doing a radio spot on ABC Radio Overnights.

Presenter Sally Knight and I spoke about all manner of security and safety issues, including questions that came in from the listeners — which is always interesting on this program, because it goes to air across Australia on every ABC Local Radio transmitter, city and country. You get to hear the real concerns.

This is the full 47-minute block of conversation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (34.7MB)

The audio is of course ©2014 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Weekly Wrap 207: Much productivity before a delayed winter

Sydney skyline from Camperdown: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 19 to Sunday 25 May 2014 was a busy one, despite having effectively lost a day flying back from the US. Excellent.

I suspect that in part this is down to the weather. Normally, things start getting gloomy in April, and the seasonal aspects of my depression kick in. For that not to have happened by now, nearly the end of May, is almost unheard of. I’m not complaining, you understand. I think it’s excellent. Yeah, fuck those polar bears!

Podcasts

I’m very pleased to say that I’ve resurrected my other podcast, Corrupted Nerds, with an episode entitled Conversations 10: Michelle Dennedy, privacy engineering. She’s chief privacy officer at McAfee.

Articles

Media Appearances

5at5

A full week this week. But why don’t you subscribe to 5at5, and then I don’t need to keep telling you about it.

Geekery

It’s been three years since I included this section in my Weekly Wrap, mostly because the geekery that I do is usually for clients, and therefore none of your business, or just routine stuff for myself, which is boring. However I’m bringing it back this week because I did a few little things of note.

  • I refurbished the website for my tech business Prussia.Net. As well as giving it a totally new appearance, as easy task thanks to Anders Noren and his WordPress theme Hemingway, I set things so that it uses HTTPS/SSL everywhere. I’ll have more to say about that soon. I also gave it an image of Sydney taken from the same location as the photo in this post.
  • I set up the Tip Stilgherrian page, as already described. I confirmed that such things are decidedly easy these days, and I’ll have more to say about that soon.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I had coffee with some people from ManageEngine. They paid for the coffee.
  • Also on Wednesday, I had coffee with some people from Actifio. They, too, paid for the coffee. This is basic hospitality rather than largesse, I know, but once I started down the path of full disclosure, I decided to do so completely.

The Week Ahead

Today, Monday, consists of a morning of production planning, followed by the production of a new episode of The 9pm Edict. Tuesday and Wednesday are days full of writing, in theory.

On Thursday I’m heading into Sydney to record this week’s Download This Show with Marc Fennell, perhaps a meeting or two, and then the launch of Kaspersky Lab’s new security for virtualisation products — with, as the invitation says, “your choice of drinks”. That’s Kaspersky code for “liver damage is inevitable”.

Needless to say, I’ve booked accommodation for the night.

I’ve got a meeting or two in Sydney on Friday, and then the weekend is currently unplanned.

[Photo: Sydney skyline from Camperdown, photographed on 20 May 2014 from Rydges Camperdown Hotel.]

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Talking the eBay data breach on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide

FIVEaa logoI’m pleased that the eBay data breach has been getting widespread media coverage. I certainly don’t mind doing a third radio spot today.

As has become a semi-regular thing, I spoke with afternoon presenter Will Goodings on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide. Just a quick five minutes between a fascinating talkback in which people expressed strong feelings about not being able to smoke at al fresco eateries and the news.

I think we covered the essentials, no?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.2MB)

eBay users should change their passwords immediately, and if they use the same password anywhere else, they should change the password there too — and invest in password management software so they can start using different random, complex passwords for every online service.

The audio is ©2014 dmgRadio Australia.

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Talking the eBay data breach on ABC The World Today

ABC logoFollowing the earlier report on AM, ABC Radio’s The World Today explored the eBay data breach story further, looking at the potential for identity theft.

The reporter was Will Ockenden, and here’s how presenter Eleanor Hall introduced the item:

Internet retailing giant eBay is admitting today that the hacking of its computer systems three months ago could affect all 145 million users of the auction website.

The company has defended the time it has taken to discover the unauthorized access to its network, and the two week delay in letting its users know that their private information was stolen.

Internet security analysts say they now expect a rise in the number of secondary attacks, as hackers attempt to exploit other sites.

eBay users should change their passwords immediately, and if they use the same password anywhere else, they should change the password there too — and invest in password management software so they can start using different random, complex passwords for every online service.

Here’s the full story, served directly from the ABC website, where you can also read the transcript.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.9MB)

The audio is of course ©2014 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Talking the eBay data breach on ABC Gold Coast

ABC logoOnline marketplace eBay has suffered a massive data breach. Their official statement outlines what we know so far. This conversation on ABC Gold Coast from earlier this morning was the first of several media spots I’m doing today.

As I explained to presenter Nicole Dyer, if all 150 million or so user records were stolen, this makes it one of the Top 5 biggest data breaches by volume of all time.

eBay users should change their passwords immediately, and if they use the same password anywhere else, they should change the password there too — and invest in password management software so they can start using different random, complex passwords for every online service.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.9MB)

Also worth listening to is Will Ockenden’s report on ABC Radio’s AM this morning. It features security researcher Graham Cluley.

The audio here is of course ©2014 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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Weekly Wrap 79: Rain, glitches and a cuckoo-dove

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. I have no further explanations to add.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 117, “Is anonymity online your right?” A conversation with Scott Shipman, eBay’s global privacy leader, about online reputation and trust, data breach-notification laws, the behavioural targeting of advertising, eBay’s AdChoice technology for controlling that targeting, some of the clever things you can do by data mining eBay’s sales data, and how you might create the online equivalent of an untraceable cash transaction.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • I was a panellist on the Technology Spectator “webinar” [ugh!] “Board with security?”, which looked at why company directors need to understand information security a bit better and how they might go about it. The recording hasn’t been posted online yet, but I’ll put a link here when it is.
  • On Thursday night I was interviewed by ABC Radio News about a report by the Australian Government Competitive Neutrality Complaints Office, part of the Productivity Commission, into claims that the National Broadband Network’s grenfields fibre rollouts breached certain government policies. Exciting stuff. Sound bites were used on Friday’s morning’s AM program in a story headlined Government brushes off NBN criticisms.

Corporate Largesse

None. And I thought there’d be a bunch of corporate parties this week. But I spent most of the week at Wentworth Falls instead.

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: A slender-billed cuckoo-dove, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages in the Blue Mountains. There’s a lot of bird life up here.]