Talking Cyber Security Strategy on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logoOn Thursday, prime minister Malcolm Turnbull released the government’s Cyber Security Strategy. Apart from writing about it for ZDNet, I ended up doing four radio spots. This is the first.

In this first post, I’ll mention as background reading the official Cyber Security Strategy website, the ZDNet stories Australia to get Cyber Minister as part of AU$240m cyber package and Turnbull calls for more openness surrounding data breaches, and my articles A ‘big science’ approach for Australian cybersecurity research? (published before the strategy was released, based on presentations at the ACSC Conference), and Turnbull sets the scene for a ‘Stop the Bytes’ election.

This first radio spot was on ABC 105.7 Darwin in the early morning, before the strategy was officially released. The presenter is Richard Margetson.

Each of these spots varied in content and style. In this one, we covered the recent rapid rise in cybercrime, the allegedly Chinese hack of the Bureau of Meteorology, a grab from Dr Tobias Feakin, and Australia’s ability to conduct offensive cyber operations.

This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Talking ID and security on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logoYesterday I ended up having a brief chat about identity, security and the concept of federated ID on ABC 105.7 Darwin. Here it is.

Breakfast presenter Richard Margetson had received a message from listener Heather from Tiwi, who’d lost her wallet. Amongst the hassle of having to replace all her cards, it was going to take up to six weeks for her new Medicare card to arrive — although she did get a new Medicare number to use straight away.

Margetson wondered whether technology might fix this. I set him straight.

The audio is of course ©2014 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Talking passwords on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logoWhen the list of the worst passwords for 2013 did the rounds last week, I’m glad that a few media outlets went beyond mocking those who used them and gave some practical advice.

ABC 105.7 Darwin was one of them. On Thursday morning 23 January I spoke with breakfast presenter Richard Margetson.

While it was a light-hearted chat, we also managed to sneak in the advice: use different passwords for everything important; the longer the password, the better it is; email account passwords are particularly important; use password management software to keep track of them all.

Searching the internet for “how to choose a good password” generally delivers reasonable advice, but I reckon Microsoft’s advice and password checker ain’t too bad.

[Update 1510 AEDT: As Nick Andrew points out, the problem with Microsoft’s password checker is that you’re typing your password into Microsoft’s website — which is obviously a Bad Idea. So my recommendation is to use it to explore how different choices for your password affect its strength, and then choose something different again for your real password based on what you’ve learned.]

The audio is of course ©2014 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Talking YouTube’s eighth birthday on ABC 105.7 Darwin

ABC logoToday is YouTube’s eighth birthday, according to the internet. On 23 April 2005, co-founder Jawed Karim uloaded the 19-second masterpiece Me at the zoo, and the rest is history.

I ended up having a light-hearted chat about it this afternoon with Richard Margetson on ABC 105.7 Darwin, and here’s the full audio of our conversation.

The audio is ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it isn’t published anywhere else and I don’t get paid so here it is.

Talking Facebook on ABC 105.7 Darwin

Here’s my conversation with Richard Margetson on ABC 105.7 Darwin about the Facebook changes, broadcast on the afternoon of Tuesday 27 September 2011.

Again, this bounces off last week’s Crikey piece, Hey Facebook, we want to share, but this is ridiculous, but Mr Margetson was also aware that I’d just come from a lunchtime briefing with a bunch of information security people so he explored that angle too.

The audio is ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, presented here as always because the ABC doesn’t generally post these live interviews and it’s a decent plug for them.