The 9pm Extra: Vertical Hold episode 403, “Has Elon Musk sunk Twitter? Should Medibank pay its cyber-ransom?”

The header of Elon Musk’s Twitter page as at 4 November 2022. (Screenshot: Stilgherrian) Inset: Vertical Hold podcast profile image. (Supplied)

Elon Musk finally owns Twitter, but is the social media giant circling the drain or about to become something entirely new? Should Medibank pay the ransom to keep customers sensitive medical data safe? I was on this week’s Vertical Hold: Behind The Tech News and this is an updated version.

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Yes of course Optus suffered a “cyber attack”, just one which looks like it was trivial to accomplish

I hate Optus

It’s still an attack even if the defences were useless. It’s still a crime even if it were easy to commit. Optus may have been a target ripe for the taking, and may well have been negligent, but the hackers are still the baddies here.

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UPDATED: The 9pm Trickle-Down Containers of Hackers and Grief

Emirati multinational logistics company DP World pays tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II with a display of shipping containers at their docks in Southampton. (Photo: Andrew McAlpine/Southern Daily Echo)

As the world, and in particular the UK, emerges from the period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, regular service is resumed — by which I mean the usual mix of the stupid and the bizarre.

[Update: This episode was edited on 25 September 2022 to reflect developments across the weekend in the Optus data breach story. If you’re after just that update, scroll in to 55m02s.]

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Weekly Wrap 619: Hacking, surveillance, and the start of a six-week election campaign

The election has been called, Cheers!

Monday 4 to Sunday 10 April 2022 was another productive week. A good podcast. A good written article. And, despite a long day out in Sydney on Saturday, some new projects are in the offing. Even La Niña couldn’t bring down my mood. And then the election campaign kicked off.

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