Tag: stephen conroy

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Live Blog: The Tangled Web in Sydney

Photograph of fibre optics

My friends over at newmatilda.com have been running a series of public forums on Internet regulation. The Sydney forum is this coming Tuesday 5 May. I’ll be liveblogging it right here.

As newmatilda.com explains:

The Federal Government’s proposal to block websites with a mandatory filter or “clean feed” has drawn vocal opposition from the online community, who are concerned about its impact on civil liberties as well as on the technical functionality of the internet. Meanwhile, many people are unaware of the proposal and its potential impact on their day to day lives.

Speakers are Fiona Patten from The Australian Sex Party, Geordie Guy from Electronic Frontiers Australia and Kerry Graham from Inspire Foundation. It’s chaired by David Vaile, head of UNSW’s Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre.

As a preview, you might like to read about last week’s forum in Melbourne or watch the video, or listen to the Brisbane one.

Bookmark this page, ‘cos the liveblog will start here at around 6pm Sydney time on 5 May. [Update 6 May 2008, 3pm: The session is complete, and I’ve fixed the spelling and added a few links.]

Continue reading “Live Blog: The Tangled Web in Sydney”

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Here’s my Triple J appearance

Triple J logo

If you missed my live radio appearance on Triple J’s Hack yesterday, you can catch it at their website. It’s Tuesday’s edition. Yes, that does mean the streams and MP3 file will disappear next week, but I’m sure we can find some way to, um, liberate it. It’s worth listening to just for the astounding interview with Senator Stephen Conroy.

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Senator Conroy and me on Triple J’s Hack

Triple J logo

Yesterday’s edition of Hack on Triple J is worth listening to not just because I’m on it, but because Senator Stephen Conroy finally makes an appearance. Some of this answers are… curious, to say the least. You run a trial and then define what you were looking for? I’ll post more later, including a transcript of the relevant pieces. Meanwhile you can listen to the podcast.

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WTF? National Broadband Network as FTTP!

Crikey logo

Yes, the story of the day is the astounding news that Australia’s new National Broadband Network will be 100Mbit/second Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) — and government-owned!

I’m part of Crikey‘s massive coverage, which kicks off with an editorial, Bernard Keane’s Huge, historic and nationalised: broadband goes ballistic and Fibre To The Node becomes Fibre To The Nerd.

My contributions are A massive and much-needed catch-up and Crikey Clarifier: National Broadband Network.

My friend and colleague Mark Pesce also has 100 million bits per second: you call that fast? And there’s plenty more — some of which is behind the paywall.

As Bernard Keane says, “It will take days — perhaps weeks or months — to work through all the possibilities of this, technically, commercially and politically.”

It’s also a massive face-saver for the minister, Senator Stephen Conroy. Instead of being sacked for screwing up the original tendering process, he’s being given command of the biggest infrastructure project in Australia’s history. Just why does he get this lifeline, I wonder?

This is a massive shift in Australia’s communications policy. Stay tuned.

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The nightmare of John Howard finally subsides

Screenshot of the Tags page, showing censorship as the new biggest tagFourteen months ago, just after the Rudd government came to power, one name dominated this website’s tag cloud. Out of 944 posts, 91 were tagged “john howard”. Finally, that’s changed.

Howard is still there, of course, in third place with 102 posts out of 1540 being so tagged, including this one. But the new leader is “censorship” with 118 and “crikey” with 106. “tv” is in equal third place with 102 — but that’s because my Stilgherrian Live posts are always tagged that. “stephen conroy” is in fifth place with 91.

As the image shows, the main post categories are Internet and Politics. I’m not at all unhappy with that.

All excellent food for thought as I ponder how I’ll continue to shape my return to doing media work full time…