metadata – Page 2 – Stilgherrian

26 October 201429 October 2014

Weekly Wrap 229: Currawongs and climate change

Flustered currawong My week of Monday 20 to Sunday 26 October 2014 was moderately productive. Not as productive as I’d hoped, but close enough.

Winter is definitely over. Despite the snowfall nearby last week, this week temperatures in the Blue Mountains rose to 28C or more, and the weekend brought a mix of bright blue skies and the occasional thundery rainstorm. We have broken the climate.

Podcasts

Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 12, being a discussion of mandatory telecommunications metadata and surveillance with Carly Nyst, legal director of Privacy International.
“The 9pm Vision for Australia”, being The 9pm Edict episode 31, 22 October 2014. It includes quite a bit about the passing of Gough Whitlam.

Articles

Will metadata musings ever mature beyond paranoid fears?, ZDNet Australia, 20 October 2014.

I’ve also written a second piece for ZDNet Australia, as well as a piece for Crikey, both of which will be published on Monday.

Media Appearances

On Wednesday, I spoke about Telstra wholesale pricing and how it affects your phone and internet bills on 1395 FIVEaa.
On Thursday, I was a guest on the recording of this week’s Download This Show for ABC Radio National.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

It’ll be another busy one, structured around a trip to Sydney on Tuesday to go to a lunchtime briefing from NetSuite and then the OpenAustralia Foundation Pub Night. I’ll be staying in Sydney overnight.

Arranged around that will be the writing of a security-related feature plus my regular column for ZDNet Australia, and the production of an episode of The 9pm Edict, probably in that order. The exact details are still to be sorted out.

The weekend is unplanned.

[Photo: “Flustered currawong”, taken when a pied currawong (Strepera graculina) managed to find its way into Bunjaree Cottages on 26 October 2014.]

20 October 2014

Corrupted Nerds on metadata, surveillance and privacy

Last Wednesday I had the very great pleasure to moderate an event titled “Data Retention: the European Experience”, a public conversation with Privacy International’s legal director Carly Nyst. The audio from the event forms the latest Corrupted Nerds: Conversations podcast.

This is a live issue in Australia right now. Australia’s favourite Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis QC, has said, “This is very much the way in which western nations are going, it’s been the case in Europe under the European Data Retention directive for some little while now.” Except that’s not true.

What Brandis didn’t say was that the European Court of Justice has declared the blanket recording of telecommunications data to be a breach of human rights. It isn’t a proportionate response to the claimed threat, and there’s no evidence that it’ll actually even help.

Europe is now winding back data retention. Well, except for the UK.

In this hour-long conversation, Nyst and I discuss the legal and historical background to data retention; the risks of the blurring law enforcement and foreign signals intelligence-gathering for national security; the revelations of Edward Sowden; and whether Australia really does have robust democratic institutions which can protect us from the risks of surveillance over-reach.

The event was organised by Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Australian Privacy Foundation.

Please, listen to the entire podcast. Or, if you prefer a quick read, try my op-ed at ZDNet Australia today, Will metadata musings ever mature beyond paranoid fears?

Subscribe to all Corrupted Nerds podcasts via RSS, iTunes and SoundCloud.

If you enjoyed this podcast, why not make a tip, or even subscribe? Every contribution helps me provide these podcasts for free.

01 September 201401 September 2014

Weekly Wrap 221: An exhausting end to winter

My week of Monday 25 to Sunday 31 August was hectic. Again. Hence so many missing blog posts until now. But it also marked the end of winter. I therefore have some hope that today, 1 September, will mark some new beginnings.

“New beginnings” sounds a bit naff, I know, but “spring cleaning” sounds a bit naff too.

Podcasts

The 9pm Edict episode 28, The 9pm Road to War, was posted on 31 August 2014.

Articles

Mining, logistics, utilities least ready to face threats, ZDNet Australia, 26 August 2014. This was the first article to emerge from the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit.
Govt modelling says NBN is just fine — as long as you don’t want to use the internet much, Crikey, 28 August 2014.
Leaked paper reveals Australia’s obsessive metadata secrecy, ZDNet Australia, 28 August 2014.

Media Appearances

On Wednesday I spoke about internet banking security on Radio 2UE Sydney. A link to the audio recording will appear here in due course.
Also on Wednesday, I spoke about ASIC’s big IP address oopsie on ABC Radio’s PM. This was later turned into a news story that quoted my description of ASIC’s actions as “both hilarious and frightening”.

5at5

Only one edition this week.

5at5 number 97, 27 August 2014.

Head to the 5at5 site to subscribe or browse through recent editions.

Corporate Largesse

On Monday and Tuesday I covered the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit, a task made slightly more burdensome by the lingering effects of food poisoning the immediately previous Sunday. I was suitably fed and watered at Gartner’s expense. Also, Vormetric Data Security gave me a t-shirt.

The Week Ahead

It’s another busy one. Monday has already gotten off to a slow start — though deliberately. I’m writing this post on the train from Sydney to the Blue Mountains. En route and later this afternoon I’ll be planning a month-long fundraising campaign for my podcasts, and particularly The 9pm Edict.

On Tuesday I’ll launch that fundraising campaign with a podcast and appropriate noises on Twitter. I’ll also be starting some spring cleaning, starting off with the backlog of audio recordings that need sorting out.

Wednesday will see a continuation of the spring cleaning theme. It’ll also see 5at5 number 100, so I might mark that occasion in some way. Bursting into tears, perhaps.

Thursday will be a day of writing, with the usual column for ZDNet Australia, and perhaps something else. Friday will also be a day of media production, but I’m not sure what that’ll entail, apart from another mini-podcast.

Saturday is a day of cleaning and tidying at Bunjaree Cottages, before heading to Sydney to spend a month housesitting in Hurstville.

[Photo: Sydney skyline at dawn, photographed from Camperdown on 31 August 2014. Not quite the first day of spring, but it certainly had that feel about it.]

12 August 2014

Talking data retention on ABC Radio’s “Life Matters”

ABC logo One of the reasons there hasn’t been so many posts here lately is that I’ve been doing quite a few media spots. I’m about to start catching up — starting with yesterday’s appearance on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters to talk about the Australian government’s plans for mandatory data retention of so-called “metadata”.

To protect against home-grown terrorism and other criminal threats, the government wants telecommunications companies to retain details of your phone and internet use for two years. So should we trade off privacy for security or is this surveillance by the state a threat to civil liberties?

Joining me is Dr Suelette Dreyfus, research fellow in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. The presenter is Natasha Mitchell.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.7MB)

08 May 201408 May 2014

Talking digital metadata on 3RRR’s Spoke

I always enjoy the opportunity to explain some of the subtleties of the politics behind the digital surveillance debate, so I was glad to get the chance to discuss the concept of “metadata” on Melbourne’s 3RRR this week.

This interview with Michelle Bennett on Spoke is from Tuesday 6 May, and we cover much the same ground as in two of my recent pieces for ZDNet Australia, It’s time that ‘metadata’ met an end and Plibersek loses our privacy in a haystack of envelopes, both first published in March.

I was very pleased that the 18-minute conversation wandered through some of the grey areas. It was neither tinfoil-hat “surveillance is bad” nor simplistic “we must fight the terrorists”. Thanks, Michelle.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.9MB)

03 August 200903 August 2009

Links for 27 July 2009 through 03 August 2009

Here are the web links I’ve found for 27 July 2009 through 03 August 2009, posted not-quite automatically, and very late.

Viral Wedding Video’s 10M Views Drive Chris Brown Buzz and Sales | Nielsen Wire: That “viral” (by which they just mean “popular”) video of a wedding party dancing into the church [was it a church?] reminded everyone of Chris Brown’s tedious autotune’d song again, with the result that it ended up in iTunes’ Top 10. Yet another example of how something being given away increases its sales.
Who needs newspapers when you have Twitter? | Salon News: A massive troll by Wired editor Chris Anderson, seeking attention for his new book Free, which is not free. He starts by saying he doesn’t use the words “media” or “news” or “journalism”, but doesn’t offer any alternatives. Wanker.
Techfest 2009 | NICTA: On 12 August 2009, NICTA showcases some of the new ICT research and development they’ree working on at this most-of-the-day event in Sydney. Let me know if you’d like to join me.
Women In Film | YouTube: A morph-montage of some of the most famous female faces in film. Note how the eyes are so similar.
Men In Film | YouTube: A morph-montage of some of film’s most famous male faces. It’s a challenge to spot all of them. Note how similar most of the noses are.
Ashes 09: Hughes’ Twitter drop – Gen Y meets the Baggy Green | Crikey: Twitter, Criket Australia style: “We get the Twitter from Phillip and I feed them into our IT guy.” Somehow I don’t think they get this “personal” and “spontaneous” stuff.
æ ç›®ï¼ˆç›®å½•): China’s PLA Daily offers free downloads of (military) music, plus some cheesy animated GIFs.
Real Black Hats Hack Security Experts on Eve of Conference | Wired.com: Infosec “expert” Dan Kaminsky has been pwn3d, and his lame choice for passwords exposed.
Tesla_Downunder: Some amazing photos of electrical effects from an Australian who’s been building large Tesla coils.
AdViews: A digital archive of thousands of vintage TV commercials from the 1950s to 1980s, created or collected by ad agency Benton & Bowles or its successor, D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B).
Profile: Gary McKinnon | guardian.co.uk: 43yo Gary McKinnon, diagnosed last August with Asperger’s syndrome, admits to hacking US military computers to fuel his UFO obsession.
Template Twitter strategy for Government Departments | UK Cabinet Office: The UK has developed a standard 20-page template which departments can use for their own Twitter strategy. I can’t help think that it’ll kill spontaneity before it starts. “All other tweets will be cleared by staff at Information Officer grade and above in the digital media team, consulting relevant colleagues in comms and private offices as necessary.” Gawd.
The Mind Of A US Army Sniper | newmatilda.com: A fine article on what it means for a soldier, particularly a sniper, to kill a person. And then do it again. Not an easy read, but an important read.
Reconceptualising “time” and “space” in the era of electronic media and communications | Australian Policy Online: “This paper examines to what extent electronic media and communications have contributed to currently changing concepts of time and space and how crucial their role is in experiencing temporality, spatiality and mobility.”
Cutthroat Capitalism: An Economic Analysis of the Somali Pirate Business Model | Wired: “Like any business, Somali piracy can be explained in purely economic terms. It flourishes by exploiting the incentives that drive international maritime trade. The other parties involved — shippers, insurers, private security contractors, and numerous national navies — stand to gain more (or at least lose less) by tolerating it than by putting up a serious fight. As for the pirates, their escalating demands are a method of price discovery, a way of gauging how much the market will bear.”
Mark Thomas Info: I first encountered Mark Thomas by reading his book As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandala: underground adventures in the arms & torture trade. The stand-up comedian and activist for human rights is worth paying attention to.
The Arms Trade | A Stubborn Mule’s Perspective: Sean Carmody turns his data analysis skills to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Arms Transfer Database, which I mentioned the other day. This initial foray generates some nice maps.
The Coming Upstream Revolution. And We Need It | Gigaom: Just as I thought, increasingly two-way communication on the web leads to increased demand for fast uplinks as well as downlinks.
Metadata for news | BuzzMachine: Jeff Jarvis’ write-up of Associated Press and the Media Standards Trust proposal for a new standard for metadata for news, plus his own thoughts.
SIPRI Arms Transfers Database | Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: A searchable database of all international transfers in seven categories of major conventional weapons from 1950 to the most recent full calendar year.