Tag: hacking

Posted on

Weeky Wrap 84: Rosellas, cyberwar and lots of radio

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers the week from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 January 2012, posted way late because I’ve been incredibly busy.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 120, “Anonymous vs. Stratfor: the real issues”, being a nice long interview with Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst with IT-Harvest, a privately-held IT security research firm based in Detroit, Michigan. He also edits and publishes the newsletter Cyber Defence Weekly, and is author of the book Surviving Cyberwar.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. I thought things might start picking up this week, but apparently not.

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: Rosellas neat Wentworth Falls, photographed near Railway Parade on 17 January 2012.]

Posted on

Talking internet scams on Sydney radio 2UE

Well, this is a roundabout thing. On Saturday afternoons Trevor Long does a regular radio spot on 2UE 954 with presenter Tim Webster. This week Paul Wallbank was going to fill in but then it turned out that he couldn’t. So I ended up doing it.

The topics we discussed included the online extortion attempt against Sydney businessmen Sulieman Ravell and his firm Funds Focus; scams relating to London 2012 Olympics tickets, and other scams that Paul Wallbank had identified, as well as his tips for avoiding scams.

We also mentioned the new top-level internet domains.

Trevor Long, meanwhile, talked about the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and what caught his eye there.

Here’s the audio, including the far-too-many mobile phone dropouts — which Tim Webster handled with aplomb — and a little bleep every time I skip over other segments like the sport and traffic reports. In fact I’ve left in Mr Webster’s handling of these glitches precisely because it shows his professionalism.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.4MB)

The audio is ©2012 Radio 2UE Sydney Pty Ltd, of course, but as usual I’m posting it here in case they don’t post it at their own website. The little beep sound is by junggle via Freesound.org, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Posted on

Talking cybersecurity on ABC Radio National Breakfast

Actually, this message about cybersecurity being a serious emerging theme for 2012 seems to be getting more mainstream coverage than I thought it would. I was part of a cybersecurity panel discussion that was broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast this morning.

Also taking part were Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest in Detroit (I spoke with him about Anonymous and Stratfor on this week’s Patch Monday podcast), and Sean Kopelke, director of security and compliance solutions at Symantec Australia. The host was Jonathan Green, who is usually editor of ABC The Drum.

Over at the ABC’s website you can find the program audio and (perhaps, eventually) transcript. But I’m also including the audio below, just in case their systems fail.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:35 — 9.5MB)

This audio is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, of course. Even though we don’t get paid.

Posted on

Talking cyber threats on ABC NewsRadio

The Australian Federal Police were talking up the risk of “cyber threats” in the Fairfax news yesterday morning, so I ended up talking about it on ABC NewsRadio.

Now the AFP was bouncing off a report from McAfee, which from the title I assume is yet another of those “The internet is dangerous, m’kay?” fear pieces. 2012 Threats Predictions. I won’t bother linking, because all these reports from the major infosec vendors are much the same, jumbling together everything from minor vandalism to “cyberterrorism” — whatever the fuck that is — with little critical analysis.

But I suppose it is actually getting this stuff onto the agenda.

Slowly.

For six minutes.

At this point I reckon I should re-link to two of my pieces from the eCrime Symposium held in Canberra in November 2011. eCrime Symposium: Harden up, warns Aussie crime fighter and eCrime Symposium wrap: Satisfaction tinged with frustration.

The presenter was Cathy Bell (who seems to be missing from the station’s page of presenters), the producer Jared Reed.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.1MB)

The audio is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. While the audio was posted shortly after broadcast at the ABC NewsRadio website, I’m going to post it here anyway. It’s easier for me than trawling their automated daily audio archive.

This is being posted a full day after the actual radio appearance, even though the post was ready within an hour of the broadcast. Why? Because I didn’t want it on the website before I’d posted last week’s Weekly Wrap. Is that good editorial judgement? Or just a little bit too anally-retentive?

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 83: Ryde, radio and fraudulent moons

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, kicking off with a fraud. Weekly Wrap posts are meant to cover what I did in the Monday-to-Sunday week, but the Full Moon photograph was only taken last night.

Well, the weekend and the start of the new week was a bit more hectic than I expected, and this was the only new photo I’d taken that could be used here. Did you really want to see my photos of taxi receipts?

I’d also intended to write a more reflective introduction, cover what it was like living in the wilds of Ryde for the week. But this post is late enough as it is, so you’ll have to live without it.

Podcasts

None. However the Patch Monday podcast returned yesterday, and I think there might well be an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast some time this week too.

Articles

I know I listed my piece for ABC The Drum on the Anonymous hack of Stratfor in last week’s Weekly Wrap, but it was published in the week covered by this post, so here it is again.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. Again. When will these PR companies actually start work for 2012?

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: Full Moon over Erskineville, photographed last night from Erskineville Road, Sydney. This is the picture as-is using the “night landscape” program setting on the Nikon Coolpix S8100.]

Posted on

Weekly Wrap 82: Anonymous, Stratfor and little else

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This was expected to be a short, easy week between Christmas and New Year, but when news of the Anonymous hack on Stratfor broke, well, that was it. It dominated everything except my personal podcast.

There’s still some end-of-year start-of-year posts to come, but I’ll deal with them over the next few days. I actually took the holiday weekend as a holiday.

Podcasts

  • The 9pm Edict episode 16, which had rather a lot about Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Christmas Message, and a fair amount about Twitter. It thought this episode was a bit weaker than others recently, because I didn’t seem to channel the rage. But I’ve been told it’s OK. I shrug my shoulders.
  • The 9pm Edict episode 17, which was put together in a pub on New Year’s Eve, interrupted by the pub closing early, and filled with more than the usual number of expletives. The bits of the script that had to be left out will appear in a special bonus episode soon.

Articles

The one written piece I did about the Stratfor hack shouldn’t be listed in this Weekly Wrap, technically, because it wasn’t published until 2 January. But I’ll list it here anyway for compeleteness.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. I have been abandoned. It’s not like PR companies are real families.

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: The Meaning of Life, Part 1. This uniform was worn by nearly every woman under 25 partying in Sydney on New Year’s Eve. Photograph taken near the corner of George and Goulburn Streets, Sydney.]