Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
As mentioned previously, my Pozible crowdfunding project was more that successful, and I’m heading to Melbourne this afternoon to cover Breakpoint and Ruxcon.
I’ve kicked off coverage over at Corrupted Nerds with a post entitled How will we cover Breakpoint and Ruxcon? I’ll leave you to struggle with the concept of what that might be about in your own time.
I’m finding it difficult to switch into that mode where I can concentrate on my writing today. The map above explains why.
I’m at the red marker near Wentworth Falls, and the only two escape routes are the road or railway east towards Sydney or west then north-west towards Lithgow.
The smaller Mt Victoria fire on the left has, remarkably, been contained to much the same boundaries as yesterday, thanks to the hard work and backburning activities of the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS). So far.
The enormous State Mine Fire to the north, however, is growing. The winds, while currently forecast to be relatively mild, are nevertheless pushing the fire in this direction. And while it might look a long way away, given adverse weather conditions a bushfire can travel that distance in mere hours.
Both fires have the potential to reach Wentworth Falls, and earlier this afternoon the RFS chief said that the entire Blue Mountains could end up at risk in the coming days.
While I’m not particularly worried, I do need to stay alert in case the RFS escalates their warnings. I’m already as step ahead: I’ve packed my bug-out bag and have an evacuation plan. But that still makes it difficult to switch off that little stay-alert part of my brain and get down to writing.
So for now, here’s the quick summary of my week Monday 14 to Sunday 20 October 2013, plus the week ahead.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 176: Largely largesse, then looming bushfires”
I’m getting sick of the “journalism is dying” meme. The old media factories are in trouble, sure, but I reckon journalism can do just fine without them. Stockholm Syndrome, people! So I’m going to put my money where my mouth is.
Well, your money.
I’ve just launched a Pozible crowdfunding campaign to send me to the Breakpoint and Ruxcon hacker conferences in Melbourne at the end of next week.
I won’t go into too much detail here. Just click through to the Pozible project page. All I’ll say for now is that there’s just seven days to raise $1800 more. Tight, but possible. More thoughts tonight.
[Update 2240 AEDT: Wow. Just, wow. It’s less that 17 hours since the Pozible project was launched, and it’s just passed 100% of the initial target. That means I’m definitely going to Breakpoint and Ruxcon, thanks to a raft of generous people. The project remains open until 1200 AEDT on Tuesday 22 October, though, with further funds going to the production of “Stream 2” items. See the Pozible project page for details of how that works. Thank you.]
Yes, I’m working through the backlog. Another Corrupted Nerds podcast has just been posted.
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are cheap and easy to do. It’s just a matter of overwhelming the target site with a flood of internet traffic. According to Michael Smith, head of Akamai Technologies’ computer security incident response team (CSIRT), such attacks will only get worse as we roll out faster broadband infrastructure.
“That increases the amount of bandwidth available to the home, but that also increases that amount of bandwidth that a bunch of computers at the home can throw at a target site,” Smith says.
That’s not the only reason that DDoS is becoming more challenging to defend against — but you’ll need to click through to the podcast to hear why.
Corrupted Nerds is also available via iTunes, and now also on SoundCloud. So you’ve really got no excuse not to listen. Well, unless you’re deaf. But that’s different.
This evening I had a lovely conversation on ABC Local Radio in Sydney and around NSW on the takedown of the Silk Road internet marketplace and the Tor anonymity software that made such anonymity possible.
The presenter was the redoubtable Dom Knight. Given that we last spoke in April, we had a lot to catch up on. Here’s the full audio.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.4MB)
The audio is of course ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, archived here because it isn’t being archived anywhere else.
My week Monday 30 September to Sunday 6 October 2013 was dominated by my trip to Newcastle for the inaugural DiG Festival and Conference. Both the city and the event were well worth it.
I’ll be writing about the DiG Festival for Crikey today, so watch out for that, but I’m sure I’ll have more to say later.[Update 2000 AEDT: And here it is.] I’ll also be writing about Newcastle, because I have many thoughts.
I also wrote a 1000-word piece that’ll appear in a printed magazine that CSO will be handing out at some events between now and the end of the year.
None, but there’ll be a new Corrupted Nerds in the coming few days.
None.
Monday is a public holiday in NSW, but not in Victoria, so I’ll be writing my story on the DiG Festival and Conference for Crikey and, perhaps, a piece that I’ve kept on the back burner for Technology Spectator.
I’m keeping Tuesday empty for some personal reasons.
On Wednesday I’ll head to Sydney for a lunchtime media briefing by Unisys, and I may stay overnight because on Thursday there’s the annual conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA). [Update 8 October 2013: Confirmed, I’ll be attending the AISA Conference and staying in Sydney until Friday.]
Friday and the weekend are currently unplanned.
[Photo: Newcastle City Hall, photographed at around 0730 AEST on 3 October 2013.]