Tag: surveillance

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Weekly Wrap 237: The week before Christmas, kinda

Wires: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 15 to Sunday 21 December 2014 was more stressful than I thought it might be, for reasons which may be alluded to in a future edition. However I will say that Mistress Insomnia was a persistent guest in my life. I hate her.

But on with the show…

Articles

5at5

Another full week for 5at5, with emails going out on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

The Week Ahead

This is barely even a tentative plan, because it’s based on the assumption that a certain large media organisation will pay their goddam bills. If that doesn’t happen on Monday, then a lot of this will have to change. Nevertheless, we have to start somewhere, right?

Monday sees the Solstice, which happens at 1003 AEDT, followed by the New Moon at 1236. I’ll conduct a small ritual centred around those times. Before that, though, certain urgent organisational tasks need to be dealt with. And after that, I’ll start work on the next episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, which has the working title “The 9pm Christmas Nazis”.

On Tuesday, I’ll be writing for ZDNet Australia in the morning, I think, before heading to Sydney for some errands and the ABC at Ultimo to do the 720 Perth spot. I may stay in Sydney overnight, or I may not.

On Wednesday, I’ll be completing The 9pm Edict, as well as tying up several billion loose ends before the holidays descend.

Thursday is Christmas Day, which will be spent quietly because family is small and distant. I’m not sure whether I’ll be in Wentworth Falls or Sydney or somewhere else at this stage.

While Friday is a public holiday, I’d originally scheduled a server migration to start that day. However that’s now looking like that’ll have to change too. The weekend is unplanned, at least at this stage.

Update 1750 AEDT: Edited to add the New Moon time and to clarify some of the exposition.

[Photo: Wires, a view from Katoomba railway station in the Blue Mountains, photographed on 15 December 2014.]

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Weekly Wrap 234: Scallops and disruption

Scallops and eel, est restaurant: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 24 to Sunday 30 November 2014 was, quite frankly, irritating — for reasons that I won’t detail here. The end result was that I didn’t get to take part in some of the social and semi-social events that I’d planned to. I am grumpy.

Articles

5at5

The only edition of the 5at5 email newsletter that I got out the door was Monday. There will be more this week, so why not subscribe so you receive them all?

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

The Week Ahead

This is the week where freelancers switch from the always-busy November to the stressful process of solving a specific, annual problem: How can I ensure that there’s enough cashflow to survive Christmas, New Year and through to the end of January, when all the usual sources of income are dry? Wish me luck.

(It’s actually quite depressing to see people starting to add Christmas motifs to their Twitter avatars and otherwise talking about “the festive season” when one’s own time is anything but festive. Sigh.)

With that in mind, Monday is a day of administrivia and planning, and Tuesday will be dedicated to production for The 9pm Edict podcast. I think a pre-Christmas subscriber drive will come out of that. That work will continue on the days after that, along with online briefings at 0830 and 1400 on Wednesday, and at 0600 on Thursday. Somewhere in there I’ll also write a column for ZDNet Australia.

On Friday I’ll be heading in to Sydney for a briefing by BAE Systems, and then the (in)famous Watterson PR Christmas lunch Cisco’s end-of-year lunch at Gastro Park. The weekend thereafter is unplanned.

[Update 2 December: Edited to reflect change to Friday’s commitments.]

[Photo: Scallops and smoked eel — or, more completely, grilled scallops, smoked eel, baby leeks, wakame, shiso, yuzu — all being an entrée at est restaurant, Sydney, photographed on 25 November 2014.]

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Weekly Wrap 230: Kangaroos and pre-summer thoughts

breakfastkangaroo-20141102-350My week of Monday 27 October to Sunday 2 November 2014 was really quite productive, but thanks to the ever-affectionate attentions of Mistress Insomnia I’m exhausted.

That said, the generally warm and sunny weather has improved my mood dramatically, and on Sunday I even cleared out a bunch of administrivia that I’ve been putting off for ages.

But enough of that. Let’s get on with the show…

Articles

I’ve also written a 2500-word feature on a security-related topic for ZDNet Australia that will be published some time in the coming week.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday, I went to a lunch hosted by NetSuite at Sydney’s Aria Restaurant, Circular Quay. As always, the food and wine was stunning. I had the oysters and the barramundi and the cheese. NetSuite also handed out a goodie bag, as is their tradition: another RuMe carry bag containing a Jawbone Mini Jambox wireless Bluetooth speaker; a bottle of Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz, which I shall save for later; and a NetSuite-branded notebook and pen.

The Week Ahead

There’s two broad themes for this week: clearing out more loose ends, and preparing to make some decisions about what I’ll be doing over the summer holiday season and into 2015.

Much as I love them, I’ve spent a bit too much time working on the podcasts The 9pm Edict and Corrupted Nerds — or rather, I haven’t got them generating enough revenue yet — which in turn has meant that I’ve been doing less paid writing, which in turn has led to less income. That’s caused problems. As usual, I’ve got too many different things happening, and I need to simplify the mix and get that revenue up.

So I’ll be addressing that this week — as well as some personal things that I won’t go into them here — or at least not in this post.

So with that in mind, and with the early part of the week a bit slow thanks to a certain horse race and its impact upon the national psyche, here’s how things will unfold.

Monday is mostly devoted to administrivia and clearing the communications backlog, but there’s a chance I might pop down from the Mountains to do a TV spot. I also plan to resurrect 5at5 — although you’ve heard that before, so take it with a grain of salt.

During the rest of the week, I’ll be producing an episode of The 9pm Edict, writing my regular ZDNet Australia column, and perhaps some other bits and pieces.

This week also sees the start of the Christmas party season — yes, I know it’s very early, but that’s how things work now — and there’s one I might go to in Sydney on Thursday night.

The weekend is unplanned, as seems to be the usual way lately.

[Photo: Breakfast Kangaroo, being chunks of kangaroo fillet marinated in lime juice, chilli and garlic, with steamed greens in oyster sauce on a bed of jasmine rice, photographed on 2 November 2014.]

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Weekly Wrap 229: Currawongs and climate change

Flustered currawongMy 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

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

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.]

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Corrupted Nerds on metadata, surveillance and privacy

Corrupted Nerds 12 cover image: click for podcast pageLast 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.

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Weekly Wrap 221: An exhausting end to winter

Sydney skyline at dawnMy 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

Articles

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.

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.]