If you watch episode 1 of Gerry Anderson’s gloriously sexist 1970 television series UFO, you will discover that he invented the best machine in the entire universe. That is all.
Flame gets me talking cyberwar worms on The Project
The Flame worm seems to have captured the imagination of the mainstream media this week — to the point where I ended up talking about it on the Channel TEN program The Project on Tuesday night.
If you’re not up to speed yet, try my day one piece for Crikey then my day two piece for CSO Online — the latter having been written after we’d all calmed down a bit.
As you can see, I’ve uploaded the relevant video clip to YouTube because I can’t seem to get the official embed code from The Project’s website to work properly. If that YouTube embed isn’t working either, you can view the segment on YouTube. Or watch the entire program segment on The Project’s website.
Yes, The Project team really did manage to turn a discussion of cyberwar into a joke about masturbating to internet pornography. It’s a talent.
Continue reading “Flame gets me talking cyberwar worms on The Project”
Talking about the “Dark Web” on ABC News 24
This morning I was interviewed by ABC News 24 about the “Dark Web”, a term Fairfax news outlets used earlier this week in a story headlined The new underbelly. Since I was at the event in Sydney that triggered the writing of that story, I was happy to tone down some of the hype-scare.
By the “Dark Web” they meant things like Silk Road, a marketplace for all manner of illegality, and the Tor anonymity network that allows Silk Road to hide… somewhere.
I’ll update this post later today to include links to the other things I discussed with presenter Andrew Geoghegan.
If the embedded video doesn’t work for you, you can watch it over on YouTube.
This is a rough copy of the video for now. I’ll upload a better version as soon as it becomes available, though that’ll still have me staring mindlessly into the distance as I’m being introduced. Sigh. The footage is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Weekly Wrap 99: Perth, privacy and poor photographs
My week from Monday 23 to Sunday 29 April 2012 covered the entire continent from Sydney to Perth and (at least later today) back again.
That’s Perth in the photo, with the Swan River just visible between the apartment buildings of East Perth. The photo was taken with my bashed-up HTC Desire phone and processed through Instagram.
Heck, if Zuckerberg reckons it’s worth a billion dollars I might as well have a look, right?
I’ll comment on Instagram itself later, and figure out a better way to integrate the photos into this website. Meanwhile, here’s a gallery of my Instagram photos, updated automatically.
And now on with the show…
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 135, “iiNet wards off AFACT, but what next?” A summary of the High Court’s decision in Roadshow Films and others versus iiNet Limited, the initial reactions, and a wide-ranging discussion with Dr Rebecca Giblin, a copyright academic and geek from Monash University’s law school, who literally wrote the book on this subject: Code Wars: 10 Years of P2P Software Litigation. Keywords for the other things we mention are SOPA/PIPA, peer-to-peer production,
Articles
- Blockbuster trial for a movie and TV industry in decline, ABC Drum Opinion, 23 April 2012.
- Security concerns over Australia’s e-health records, CSO Online, 23 April 2012.
Media Appearances
- On Wednesday I was interviewed about the cash for tweets demi-scandal by Adelaide newspaper The Advertiser and their website AdelaideNow. The cash for what? Well, ABC TV’s Media Watch covered it on Monday night. Basically the South Australian Department of Tourism paid “celebrities” $750 to tweet about Kangaroo Island — but the tweets weren’t disclosed as advertising.
- On Thursday I was interviewed by SBS News for the story Wi-Fi networks ‘too hackable’. Quotes from this article appeared in Your WiFi Used In Their Crimes at smarthouse.com.au, where I was billed as a “tech blogger”.
- On Friday I presented at the DigitalMe event in Perth. I’ll link to the video as soon as that’s posted. Meanwhile here’s Sara Culverhouse’s summary.
- Also on Friday I was interviewed on ABC 720 Perth about that DigitalMe presentation. Thanks to Perth’s endemic taxi shortage I ended up walking briskly to the ABC studios — but not briskly enough. I did the interview via phone from the street. That meant I couldn’t record it.
- And still on Friday I spoke about the Optus TV Now appeal on ABC Local Radio sort-of-nationally with Dom Knight, as well as some of the stuff I covered at DigitalMe.
Corporate Largesse
- I wasn’t paid to present at DigitalMe, they did cover travel from Sydney to Perth and one night’s accommodation at Aarons Hotel including breakfast. Wine by Brad provided booze for the welcome drinks, as well as a bottle to take home. Food was supplied by Sorrento Restaurant, Northbridge.
The Week Ahead
A busy week of writing lies ahead, including a story for CSO Online and my presentation for the Saasu Cloud Conference the following week. I’ll also continue work on the feature story I’m writing for ZDNet Australia
I believe I’ll be back in Wentworth Falls for most of the week, but this could change at short notice. The Dopplr widget on the left-hand side of every page of my website is usually updated within an hour of plans changing, so always check there first — but bear in mind it has odd ideas of what day it is.
Elsewhere
Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream (or they used to before my phone camera got a bit too scratched up). The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.
Talking the Optus TV Now appeal on ABC Local Radio
In February the Federal Court ruled that Optus TV Now, which recorded free-to-air TV on behalf of customers for more convenient playback later, was legitimate personal timeshifting as allowed under section 111 of the Copyright Act 1968. Yesterday the Full Federal Court overturned that decision.
This case has interesting implications. Originally, Justice Steve Rares said, effectively, that someone using a recorder-in-the cloud was still making a personal copy for domestic purposes. The fact that they’re using a recording device that’s provided as a service rather than sitting on the shelf under their television is irrelevant. The Full Court is saying, effectively, that the cloud provider is complicity in the action, which means it’s no longer personal, and in some cases may even be the sole actor.
This interpretation could have massive implications for providers of other cloud services. Could they be found to be copying data that they’re not entitled to? I’m no lawyer, so don’t ask me. But I can at least see that the law is having to deal with situations that are very different from the circumstances imagined when it was written.
Paragraph 100 of the Full Court’s decisions does say:
We should emphasise that our concerns here have been limited to the particular service provider-subscriber relationship of Optus and its subscribers to the TV Now Service and to the nature and operation of the particular technology used to provide the service in question. We accept that different relationships and differing technologies may well yield different conclusions to the “who makes the copy” question.
Will this decision be appealed? You bet.
Last night I spoke about the decision and its implications with Dom Knight on ABC Local Radio nationally — well, except for the analog transmitters that were broadcasting the cricket. I also spoke about the material I presented yesterday at DigitalMe in Perth.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.9MB)
[Update: I just noticed that there’s a couple of little audio gaps. I was recording off the stream, y’see. I’ll fix them later.]
Personally, I stand by what I said in the opinion piece I wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald in February: Sport has to think outside the box.
If you’re in Perth today, the DigitalFamily event starts at 1000 local time at Northbridge Piazza. It’s free.
The audio is of course ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but as usual I’m posting it here as an archive.
Weekly Wrap 98: Logies, lawyers and largesse
My usual weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This post covers the week from Monday 16 to Sunday 22 April 2012.
No photo again this week because camera-dearth.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 134, “Avoiding your own Logies leak moment”. Web developer Dave Hall, principal engineer at Technocrat, explains how the Herald Sun might have used the robots exclusion standard to stop the world seeing its embargoed story about Gold Logie winner Hamish Blake — but read the first comment on the story for important additional information.
Articles
- AFACT’s appeal against iiNet decision dismissed — but just you wait, Crikey, 20 April 2012.
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday I was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald and other Fairfax media outlets on that Logies oopsie by the Herald Sun.
- On Friday I spoke about the #iiTrial decision on ABC 702 Sydney.
Corporate Largesse
- On Tuesday night Samsung launched their new Smart TV range at Blue Hotel, Woolloomooloo. Apart from food and drink, we all got a goodie bag containing a bottle of Jacob’s Creek Cool Harvest 2011 Pinot Grigio (which was lovely); a Blu-Ray copy of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a double pass to see King of Devil’s Island at the cinema next weekend (when I’m in Perth), a 2-for-1 voucher to see Wish You Were Here at the cinema, all of which I’m giving to Richard Chirgwin; two 330ml cartons of Kokomo coconut water (do they mean “juice”? it tasted like juice), which is “powered by nature” (ugh!) and which I drank; three chocolates from Fardoulis Chocolates, which I ate in about 11 seconds; a 50ml thing of Schwarzkopf [3D]Mension hair and body shampoo (that’s what it says, apparently “body shampoo” is a thing); a 50ml can of Avène Thermal Spring Water, which “smooths and softens sensitive skin” (which sounds like quite a lot of bullshit to me), which I’ll investigate further with Science; and a voucher for Chi Spa at the Shangri-La Hotel to get a 90-minute “treatment” for the price of a 60-minute one, as long as it’s on a weekday, which I threw away because it’s bullshit.
- On Wednesday afternoon LG launched their own Cinema 3D range of smart TVs at Sydney’s newly-renovated Museum of Contemporary Art. Apart from food and drink, there was also a goodie bag — though I ended up not taking one because I was too busy gossiping with Paul Wallbank. Nevertheless, I came away with a voucher to get 40% off buying one of said TVs. Not that I will.
The Week Ahead
Busy. Monday morning you’ll see articles at ABC The Drum and CSO Online that I’ll have written overnight, as well as the Patch Monday podcast.
Then I’ll continue work on the feature story I’m writing for ZDNet Australia and my presentation that’ll be delivered at DigitalMe in Perth on Friday. You’ll be able to hear a preview of that on ABC 720 Perth on Thursday afternoon some time. And while in Perth I’ll be recording the following week’s Patch Monday podcast. Whew!
In terms of my movements, the new plan is that I’ll be in Sydney until I fly to Perth on Thursday, and then in Sydney overnight Sunday night upon my return.
Elsewhere
Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream (or they used to before my phone camera got a bit too scratched up). The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.