Tag: peter lloyd

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Talking Twitter’s business on ABC Radio’s The World Today

ABC logoOn Friday I was interviewed about Twitter’s latest quarterly results by ABC Radio’s lunchtime national current affairs program, The World Today — and in particular the potential future impact of bullying and trolling. And here’s the result.

“Twitter CEO admits cyber bullying poses threat to revenue growth,” was the story’s headline, and this is how presenter Peter Lloyd introduced it:

“The social media giant Twitter is being been forced to confront a serious threat to its profitability – cyber bullying. In internal emails leaked to a news website, the Twitter’s CEO says he ashamed of his company’s handling of bullies. Dick Costolo says harassed users are abandoning the service and as part of the quarterly financial results announcement overnight, Twitter reported disappointing user growth in the final three months of last year.”

The reporter was Pat McGrath.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.9MB)

The audio is ©2015 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The audio is being served directly from the ABC website, where you can also read a transcript.

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Talking ATO e-tax for Mac on ABC Radio’s “PM”

ABC logoAfter 15 years, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) finally launched a Mac OS X version of its e-tax software for filing personal income tax returns — and it doesn’t work. Hah!

ATO bungles e-tax for Mac launch, wrote Ben Grubb at Fairfax. E-tax for Mac launch stumbles on developer certificate, wrote Josh Taylor at ZDNet. And so on.

I gave my feelpinion on ABC Radio’s PM program this evening. I was not complimentary. I mentioned steam trains. And sledgehammers.

The journalist was Johanna Jarvis. The presenter, Peter Lloyd. Here’s the audio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.6MB)

The audio is of course ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and over at the ABC website you can find their audio and a transcript.

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Talking cybersecurity bollocks on ABC Radio’s “AM”

ABC logoFollowing the announcement of a new Australian Cyber Security Centre, to be built by the end of 2013, I ended up being interviewed by ABC Radio’s AM program on 24 January — but it didn’t turn out so flash.

Journalist Peter Lloyd asked me about cybersecurity threats. I think I mentioned that at one end of the spectrum there’s serious nation-state espionage and sabotage, but at the other there’s all manner of low-end crime that probably doesn’t warrant a national centre — and I used ransomware as an example of that.

But in the finished story, somehow that example became the defining crime. Oops.

PETER LLOYD: So far cyber crime in Australia has largely been a new form of stand-over tactic. The online commentator and writer, Stilgherrian:

STILGHERRIAN: We’ve got the low level cyber crime operatives who are just trying to hack into small businesses, encrypt all their data, hold them to ransom. We’ve seen cases of that with victims in Alice Springs and the Gold Coast and elsewhere in Australia, that a business finds that all the data on their computer is unavailable until they send money of some thousands of dollars to have it unlocked for them.

Anyway, for posterity, here’s the audio of the piece.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.1MB)

The audio is ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.