icloud – Stilgherrian

02 September 201403 September 2014

Talking the alleged Apple iCloud hack on 1395 FIVEaa

The third and final of today’s radio spots about the alleged hack of Apple’s iCloud service was at lunchtime, so I’d had time to wake up and gather my thoughts — as well as see how the infosec community was reacting.

The afternoon presenter on 1395 FIVEaa in Adelaide, Will Goodings, gave it plenty of time too, some 14 minutes, so we covered quite a few issues — including the privacy implications of cloud technology generally.

I sound a bit tired or something, though. Possibly because I was tired.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.6MB)

Today’s previous two radio spots were for Nova 100 Melbourne and ABC Radio’s AM.

02 September 201402 September 2014

Talking the alleged Apple iCloud hack on ABC Radio AM

ABC logo A few minutes after doing the live spot on Nova 100, I recorded an interview on the alleged Apple iCloud hack for ABC Radio’s national current affairs program AM.

Reporter Emily Bourke would have gone away with a disjointed mess of soundbites, but the disjointedness isn’t so important when it’ll be edited into a multi-voice report.

I think this one quote best summarises my view of the compromise we enter into when using cloud services:

The big problem with creating massive online cloud storage systems — which is now the way we do things on the internet, whether it’s Apple or Microsoft or Google or Amazon or whoever — is that you create a vast honey pot of a target for the attackers.

Once you find one way to get in, you can potentially get access to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people’s data.

The plus side is such concentrated services means they can hire some of the best security people they can find, putting brains onto the problem is obviously important. So at one level the cloud providers can, if they do it right, protect things far better than you or I could on computer systems under our own control.

The failures are therefore going to be far less frequent. It’s just that when the failures do happen they can be catastrophic.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.7MB)

A few sentences of my comments were also used in a later report on The World Today at lunchtime, which featured security researcher Troy Hunt.

02 September 201405 September 2014

Talking the alleged Apple iCloud hack on Nova 100

It’s starting to look like an alleged hack of Apple’s iCloud service was the source of a series of nude photos of female celebrities that has appeared online. That news led to a series of radio appearances for me today. Starting with this one.

The story itself has already been widely reported, and I won’t go into any detail about the victims of this invasion of privacy. One good place to start is this summary at The Guardian, and there’s more technical details at TUAW. These blog posts will simply present the media spots that I did.

First up was Nova 100 in Melbourne. This was done live with breakfast presenters Meshel and Tommy at 0720, and my coffee hadn’t kicked in yet. That’s why I screwed up my first, embarrassingly-wrong go at the explanation — at least that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

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

It seems Meshel was quite taken with my name. That’s so sweet.

18 February 2012

Talking iMessage and Path privacy fail on radio 2UE

So I ended up going quick chat just now on Radio 2UE just now about Apple’s newly-announced iMessage plans and Path’s privacy outrage.

While Apple’s iMessage isn’t new, extending the application to the Mac’s OS X desktop is, as are some of the iCloud-linked services. In part that’s shoring up Apple’s cloud services. And it’s certainly part of the threat to mobile telcos’ revenue that I wrote about for CSO Online yesterday.

The Path thing is just arsehattery of the first water.

Anyway, here’s the audio. The presenter is Tim Webster and you’ll also hear his regular guest Trevor Long.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.6MB)

13 June 2011

Talking the cloud on ABC Radio Darwin 105.7

Apple wins again, it seems. They launch their iCloud service, and for the masses it’s the first time they’ve encountered cloud computing. So on Friday I ended up talking the cloud with Kate O’Toole on ABC Radio Darwin 105.7.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:55 — 5.8MB)

This material is Â©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, of course, but given that I provide my time for free and they don’t make the effort to make it available online, it’s only reasonable that I put it here and plug Kate Oâ€™Toole’s excellent program.