So, I’m reading Liam Tung’s article at CSO Online about the zero-day exploit in Adobe Flash just now, when…
Could you possibly imagine better timing?
Weekly Wrap 67: Spring comes to Sydney
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. A relatively quiet week, because I took a bit of time off in Kuala Lumpur and then in Sydney when I returned.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 105, “Crims come to the net: expert and patient”. A conversation with Evgeny (“Eugene”) Aseev and Nathan Wang from Kaspersky Lab, recorded in Kuala Lumpur.
Articles
- 18 infosec fails that let crims win, ZDNet Australia, 12 September 2011. A checklist based on Evgeny Aseev’s presentation.
- Infosec’s mega marketing misalignment mishap, CSO, 13 September 2011. An overly-alliterative rant about Symantec’s dodgy 2011 Norton Cybercrime Report.
- “Insidious” cyber chaos too fast for ASIO (contributor only, as Liam Tung actually wrote the story and I just inserted a few facts), CSO, 15 September 2011.
- Yet another free pass for Aussie spooks, CSO, 16 September 2011.
Media Appearances
None.
Corporate Largesse
None.
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: Sydney cityscape, photographed from Potts Point, photographed with my new Nikon Coolpix S8100 camera. I really did need a decent digital still camera for editorial work, and this will do the trick.]
Visiting Las Vegas for McAfee Focus 11 security conference
Four weeks from now I’m flying to Las Vegas for McAfee’s Focus 11 security conference, 18 to 20 October 2011. On their tab, obviously.
Vendor conferences must have a keynote speaker that has nothing to do with the industry. Focus 11 is no exception. We have… Richard Branson. WTF?
At this stage the plan is that I’m heading to San Francisco first, since McAfee want me to visit their corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley before heading to Vegas. Then once the conference is over I intend to spend a couple more days in Vegas and do the day trip to the Hoover Dam and perhaps the Grand Canyon, and then spend Saturday night in Los Angeles since the only part of that city I’ve seen is the airport.
Mind you, I’m told that Los Angeles is shit.
Any other suggestions for things to see and do near Las Vegas?
No Canberra for cyberwar after all
As it happens, I didn’t end up going to the 2nd National Cyber Warfare Conference in Canberra this week. The conference sessions weren’t open to the media, and I decided that it wasn’t worth the trip if we’d have to rely on second-hand information.
That said, we did manage to get a recording of the over-dinner speech by David Irvine, the director-general of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which Liam Tung turned into the story “Insidious” cyber chaos too fast for ASIO. It also served as part of the inspiration for my story Yet another free pass for Aussie spooks.
Who wants to go to Canberra anyway?
However SC Magazine did send Darren Pauli and John Hilvert, and their stories were:
Weekly Wrap 66: Kuala Lumpur: haze, hackers, food aplenty
A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Most of the week was spent in Kuala Lumpur, my first visit. I’ll write more about that anon.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 104, “Can security ever beat PEBKAC?”. A conversation with Paul Ducklin, head of technology for the Asia-Pacific region with Sophos, and Chris Gatford, proprietor of Hack Labs, a specialist in penetration testing.
Articles
- Rogue Google certificate used by 300,000 Iranian IPs , CSO, 6 September 2011.
- Kaspersky sets sights on corporate market, CSO, 8 September 2011.
- MD5 password hashes are dead, CSO, 9 September 2011. A warning from Kaspersky Lab analyst Evgeny (“Eugene”) Aseev.
Further material from the Kaspersky Lab event is appearing from today.
Media Appearances
None.
Corporate Largesse
- On Tuesday I had lunch at Ocean Restaurant, Cockle Bay Wharf, thanks to Check Point. There’s some material from the conversations there that will appear in the next few days.
- On Tuesday night I travelled to Kuala Lumpur thanks to Kasperky Lab. Their largesse included flights and airport transfers; meals and accommodation at Le Meridien; an evening sightseeing trip to Putrajaya including dinner on a cruise boat; a Kaspersky-branded leather document case, rather nice actually; Kaspersky-branded USB-powered speakers; and a t-shirt. I declined the offer of an all-day sightseeing tour on Friday because I had work to do.
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: Kuala Lumpur skyline, shrouded in haze, photographed with my battered HTC Desire from the 14th floor of Le Meridien, KL Sentral. It’s like this pretty much all day, what with the Indonesians burning down the rainforests and all. The photo doesn’t do the scene justice. I have since obtained a decent camera.]
Weekly Wrap 65: Better late than never, perhaps
A supposedly-weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers Monday 29 August to Sunday 4 September 2011, a week during which I was so mentally exhausted I needed to take a bit of a break — hence the relatively low level of media output.
I also did about a day’s worth of geek-for-hire stuff for some long-standing clients. That was primarily web development, not the sort of thing I detail here unless there’s something interesting to show you.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 103, “Google’s real names a real disaster”. A conversation with Kirrily “Skud” Robert, about which I have already written stuff.
Articles
- Google+ is a goddam Trojan horse, Crikey, 30 August 2011.
- AVG 2012: your local pub bouncer made digital, CSO, 1 September 2011.
Media Appearances
None.
Corporate Largesse
None.
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.