My week of Monday 12 to Sunday 18 July 2021 was a strange one. My mood improved, as did productivity. I did some geekery for money, wrote a story for ZDNet, produced a podcast, and appeared on another. Then the weather turned cold. And then there was bad news concerning a friend — but that bit I won’t talk about.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 581: Productive, sure, but let us reflect on those tiny-headed pigeons”Talking recent hacks in Australia on ABC Melbourne
It’s a week since Australian media company Nine Entertainment became the victim of what’s been called a ransomware attack, one that affected TV and print operations. We still don’t know all that many facts, but on Tuesday I spoke about what we knew on ABC Melbourne.
Continue reading “Talking recent hacks in Australia on ABC Melbourne”Weekly Wrap 543: Generosity, moistness, and cybers
Monday 19 to Sunday 25 October 2020 was a happy one. A successful crowdfunding campaign. Productivity. And the start of a streak of rainy weather. Joy.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 543: Generosity, moistness, and cybers”Weekly Wrap 432: More cybers, with a little Cronulla
I don’t know what to make of my week from Monday 3 to Sunday 9 September 2018. It felt like I was quite busy, but there isn’t as much visible output to show for it. Oh well.
Articles
- Five Eyes governments get even tougher on encryption, ZDNet Australia, 3 September 2018.
- Crims not spooks dominate cybersecurity threats: Sophos CEO, ZDNet Australia, 7 September 2018. Ransomware, the volume of customised malware, and its commercialisation are the biggest factors affecting cybersecurity today, says Kris Hagerman. Nation-state actors less so, at least for most organisations.
I wrote a third piece for ZDNet that should appear on Monday.
Podcasts, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None. I am very embarrassed not to have done the podcast on Wednesday as promised. I did make the journey to Cronulla the recording session, as foreshadowed last week, but it turned out that I wasn’t quite recovered from illness, and needed to rest. But see below.
The Week Ahead
It’s a Sydney-centric week. I’ll head down the hill on Monday morning for least one meeting that afternoon.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I’m covering the AI & Machine Learning Summit. Thursday and Friday will be therefore about writing.
Further Ahead
The next episode of The 9pm Edict will now be recorded on Tuesday 18 September at 2100 AEST, because that week looks less hectic. Listen on the livestream or on Spreaker apps, or listen later on the usual feeds.
Beyond that:
- Flying Sydney to Adelaide in a Vans RV-6 light aircraft registration VH-SOL piloted by Mark Newton, on Friday 28 or Saturday 29 September. I’ll record things for a podcast en route.
- FireEye Cyber Defense Summit, Washington DC, 1–5 October.
- Australian Cyber Conference, formerly the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) National Conference, Melbourne, 9–11 October.
- The Sibos global financial services conference, Sydney, 22–25 October.
- International Association of Privacy Professionals ANZ (iappANZ) Annual Summit, Privacy: Handling the Seismic Shift, Melbourne, 1 November. (TBC)
[Photo: The Right to Strike. Trade union members leading a protest march through Pitt Street, Sydney on 6 September 2018. It was a big event, with the column stretching for maybe two kilometres, yet it received little media coverage. As for this photo, I wish I’d had a wider angle lens and been able to bet in closer.]
Weekly Wrap 370: One and a half launches and climbing
My week of Monday 26 June to Sunday 2 July 2017 was strangely quiet, but also strangely productive. It’s a fine start for the new financial year.
I’m even fixing my broken time-management systems, and that’s just one of the reasons I finally feel like I’m climbing out of a low patch.
Articles
- Australia’s encryption thwart thought is fraught, ZDNet Australia, 28 June 2017.
I wrote a second piece for ZDNet, which will be posted on Monday.
Media Appearances
On Tuesday night Australian time, the ransomware known variously as Petya or NotPetya amongst other things, spread across the planet. Inevitably, I ended up talking about it in the media on Wednesday. I did radio spots on 3AW Melbourne, ABC Brisbane (where I also spoke briefly about the €2.4 billion fine copped by Google), ABC Melbourne, and various ABC News reports. I also appeared on Channel TEN’s The Project.
And on Friday evening, I spoke about Australia’s new cyber warfare unit (briefly) and other matters with Peter Goers on ABC Adelaide.
Podcasts, Corporate Largesse
None. Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 370: One and a half launches and climbing”
Weekly Wrap 364: Cruising through May, striking few rocks
It’s another multi-week Weekly Wrap, covering the three weeks from Monday 1 to Sunday 21 May 2017. The throat infection is finally gone — touch wood — but the sleep patterns are still rubbish, and the care factor low.
I don’t want to whinge any more, through, so here are the things.
Articles
- Cyber cooperation leads to cybersecurity, so why won’t Australia cyber do it?, ZDNet Australia, 3 May 2017.
- Lawyers and insurers set for data breach payday, ZDNet Australia, 10 May 2017.
- Hey cyber techbros, smugly yelling ‘patch and back-up’ won’t fix ransomware, ZDNet Australia, 15 May 2017. This was my response to the WannaCry worm outbreak a few days previously, and I got a bunch of hate mail, but also a bunch of compliments. Go figure.
Podcasts
None, but see below for my podcast plans.
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday 2 May, I spoke very briefly about the attempted extortion of Netflix by a hacker group on Ten Network’s The Project. It was originally planned to be a longer package followed by a studio guest, but we were cut back to make room for a breaking political story. I forgot to grab a copy of the video, alas.
- Some of my comments on WannaCry were quoted in an article at Popular Science, 5 things we learned from WanaCryptor, the biggest ransomware attack in internet history, as well as some other places.
- Some of my tweets about Twitter’s privacy changes were quoted at Breitbart, of all places, in Twitter Introduces 'Creepy' New Privacy Settings, Auto Location Tracking.
- Some of my tweets on the death of Mark Colvin were quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald, ABC journalist Mark Colvin dead at 65.
I’ve just finished reading Mark Colvin’s book, Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy’s Son, and it’s wonderful. If you’re in Australia, it’s currently AUD 8.60 on Kindle.
Corporate Largesse
- On Wednesday 3 May, I covered Cyber Security — the Leadership Imperative 2017, and a lovely breakfast was served. It also led to the first two stories listed above.
The Week Ahead
I’ve dropped my plans to cover the AusCERT Information Security Conference on the Gold Coast later this coming week, in part because I’ve got plenty of other things to do.
This week I plan to do a solid amount of work on the SEKRIT editorial project; write a thing or two for ZDNet, including a 1500-word feature; plus, I guess, a bunch of other things. But I won’t assign specific tasks to specific days, because that tends to jinx things, especially with my sleep patterns still being so dodgy.
Further Ahead
The next episode of The 9pm Edict podcast will be recorded and streamed live on Tuesday 30 May from stilgherrian.com/edict/live/, starting at 2100 AEST. You still have time to support this podcast with a one-off contribution.
(For those of you who’ve been asking about ongoing contributions, yes, I still intend to set up a better system for that. That won’t be finalised for a while, though, so one-off contributions are very welcome.)
Beyond that, I’m covering 5th International Conference on Cybercrime and Computer Forensics (ICCCF) on the Gold Coast from 16 to 18 July, I hope; and the national conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) in Sydney on 10 to 12 October.
If there’s anything I should add in there, please let me know.
[Photo: Circles and Spikes. The side of the cruise liner Carnival Spirit docked at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay, Sydney, on 17 May 2017.]