Tag: surveillance

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Weekly Wrap 188: Long views to launch another long year

My week of Monday 6 to Sunday 12 January 2014 saw the start of some productivity for 2014, but for various reasons was relatively slow — and as usual when I’m posting late, it’s “just the facts”.

Articles

  • 2014, the year that infosec gets political, CSO Online, 6 January 2014. This was actually written at the very end of November 2013 for a print publication handed out through December, which is why it’s missing some of the most recent Snowden revelations.
  • Australian retailers recruiting generals for yesterday’s war, ZDNet Australia, 10 January 2014. I don’t often write about retail, but the decisions by both Myer and David Jones to search for new CEOs without specifically looking for online clue struck me as a particularly daft strategy.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. It’ll be another week or two before the hospitality starts flowing again.

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Talking security and more on ABC Download This Show

ABC logoBack on 13 December I was a guest for the recording of the penultimate episode of Marc Fennell’s Download This Show for 2013.

Data privacy. What a year it’s been: 2013 will be remembered as the year we came to understand just how much our data was not our own. Edward Snowden might not have won Time magazine’s Person of the Year, pipped to the post by Pope Francis, but the former NSA computer specialist has forever changed the way we think about our information security as a result of his world-changing revelations. But has he changed our behaviour?

My fellow panellist was Karalee Evans, head of social for advertising agency DDB Australia, and we had a great time. Here’s the full audio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.4MB)

The audio is ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and it’s served here directly from the ABC website.

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Weekly Wrap 166: Early spring, with fewer distractions

Railway Parade: click to embiggenMy week Monday 5 to Sunday 11 August 2013 saw the return of productivity. While I didn’t get everything done that I’d planned, I’m very happy with what did appear.

And that’s despite Thursday night being much later than planned, thanks to further train delays and a strange incident with a drunk and potentially violent man, and losing Saturday to a sore throat. But I won’t dwell on that.

Podcasts

  • Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 3, being a wide-ranging conversation with Peter Coffee, vice-president and head of platform research for Salesforce.com. His reasoning being why everything will eventually end up being done in the cloud, and what will unfold from that, are just two of the many highlights.

I’m pleased to say that Corrupted Nerds is now available in Apple’s iTunes Store.

I had hoped to kick off The 9pm Election podcast too, but the sore throat put an end to that plan. To be honest, I’m now thinking that it’d be adding just a little too much to my workload. That, plus the fact that I’m starting to find the obsession with the minutiae of the election campaign to be really, really boring.

Articles

Both these stories generated quite a bit of interest, it seems. I also wrote for Technology Spectator, but that piece has been held over until next week.

Media Appearances

  • On Tuesday, I spoke about Vote Compass on ABC 666 Canberra, along with its creator, Cliff van der Linden.
  • I was interviewed by ITJourno for a piece about Corrupted Nerds that’ll appear some time soon.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Thursday, I popped into the Australian Direct Marketing Association’s conference in Sydney, where refreshments were provided.

The Week Ahead

I’m keeping things relatively flexible, but there’ll be quite a few media objects produced. Another episode of Corrupted Nerds is almost ready to post and will likely appear on Tuesday, and I’m committed to writing two pieces for Crikey and one each for ZDNet Australia and Technology Spectator.

I’ll be in Sydney on Friday night for the launch of Dom Knight’s new book, Man vs Child, and may well stay in town overnight.

[Photo: Railway Parade), photographed about 1km east of Wentworth Falls on 5 August 2013. Spring is coming very early this year.]

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Weekly Wrap 162: A dog, a pause, and an invisible cat

Sunday night in the village: click to embiggenMy week Monday 8 to Sunday 14 July 2013 was a continuation of my distinct slow-down, for reasons explained previously.

I still haven’t decided whether I’ll write about that any further. For now, I’ll just say that there’s been suitable initial progress on that front. Many thanks to the people — friends, colleagues and strangers alike — who’ve been in touch.

Meanwhile, as usual, here’s the media-related things I’ve done this week. Not that there were many.

Podcasts

None.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. Well, there was some on offer, but I declined. I have heard rumour which suggest that I made the wrong decision.

The Week Ahead

The theme for the coming week is “assessment”. I’ll be be running through the various areas of my life to see where I’m up to, what issues I should perhaps address, and what the possibilities for the future might be. Personal stuff, including my health. Work, both media-related and otherwise. All sorts of stuff. I haven’t done that for a while. I’ve just been cruising along.

In between, I’ll be writing for Technology Spectator and ZDNet Australia, and perhaps some others. I’ll also post another episode of the Corrupted Nerds podcast, fix some problems with the website, and sketch out my ideas for making that a sustainable project.

On Thursday I’ll be down in Sydney for a medical appointment and lunch with a friend. Whether I’ll be staying in Sydney longer than that remains to be decided.

[Photo: Sunday night in the village, being the near-deserted Station Street, Wentworth Falls, earlier this evening.]

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Weekly Wrap 160: Black dog, black sky and more NSA

Sydney under the clouds: kick to embiggenMy week Monday 24 to Sunday 30 June 2013 was rather complicated, at least emotionally.

As will be explained tomorrow on Tuesday Thursday.

Nevertheless, I managed to create some media objects along the way. And here they are.

Podcasts

I’m very pleased to have launched my new podcast and website, Corrupted Nerds.

  • Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 1, a conversation with Eugene Kaspersky, founder and CEO of Kaspersky Lab. If we’re going to be accurate, then this was really published in the previous week. But I forgot. So sue me.
  • Corrupted Nerds: Extra 1, being Senator Brett Mason’s “corrupted nerds” speech in the Australian Senate from 21 August 2012, which inspired the title. This was published last week too.
  • Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 2, a chat with Sean Richmond, senior technology consultant from Sophos Australia and New Zealand, about personalised malware, defense in depth, and why advanced persistent threats (APTs) and cyberwar are over-hyped.

I have yet to arrange any funding for this podcast, so I’ll be seeking that soon — and I’d be more than happy to hear your suggestions.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • Since Saturday 8 June I’ve been using Vodafone’s new 4G network while in Sydney, and their existing 3G network while in the Blue Mountains, with a Samsung Galaxy S4 handset that they’ve loaned me. I’ll be writing about my experiences on Monday. [Update 2 July 2013: I’ve just posted my write-up of my experiences. Yeah, it’s Tuesday.

The Week Ahead

The new financial year starts on Monday, so I daresay the morning will be full of administrivia. I’ll then be heading down to Sydney, because…

On Tuesday morning I’m attending a discussion on data sovereignty and the cloud, hosted by data centre firm NEXTDC, along with financial services company Aon and law firm Baker & McKenzie. That will be followed at the same event by the launch of the University of New South Wales’ report Data Sovereignty and the Cloud — A Board and Executive Officers’ Guide. I’ll be reporting this for someone, but as yet I don’t know who that will be.

I’ll be in Sydney again later in the week, probably Thursday, for a medical appointment, but that’s not confirmed yet. When it is, I’ll arrange my writing and media production schedule around that. There’s definitely stories to write for ZDNet Australia and CSO Online, plus an episode of Corrupted Nerds, and there’ll certainly be things that pop up along the way.

And then the weekend is unplanned.

[Photo: Sydney under the clouds, photographed from the Rydges Camperdown hotel in Sydney on 25 June 2013.]

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Weekly Wrap 158: NSA and all the cybers, mostly

NSA Decipher Dog character: click to embiggenMy week Monday 10 to Sunday 16 June 2013 was dominated by the US National Security Agency (NSA). Well, by the news pertaining thereto. Funny world.

I can’t be arsed writing about that any further today. Here’s the links, and you can ask me questions and initiate conversation in the comments. Which I may ignore.

You post your comments, you take your chances.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I attended the Sydney launch of Intel’s 4th Generation Core processors at the Museum of Contemporary Art. There was food and drink.

[Photo: NSA’s Decipher Dog character, part of the agency’s kids outreach program.]