My week of Monday 3 to Sunday 9 November 2014 was remarkably productive, despite the temptations of then grains and the gentle ministrations of Mistress Insomnia.
Articles
- Putting people at the centre of enterprise security, ZDNet Australia, 3 November 2014. People are the weakest link, folks. This 2500-word feature covers something that executives, CIOs and CISOs should be thinking about.
- Malicious software spreads seeds of doubt in Apple’s magic garden, Crikey, 7 November 2014.
- Customer data protection is a corporate social responsibility, ZDNet Australia, 7 November 2014.
5at5
My 5at5 daily email newsletter reappeared, and I managed to produce all five editions on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Why not subscribe so you receive them all?
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday night I spoke about internet trolls and the harassment of women online on ABC TV’s Lateline.
- On Friday, I spoke about WireLurker, Google and Peta Credlin on Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa.
- Also on Friday, I was quoted — or rather, one of my tweets was quoted — in a story at the International Business Times, Thousands Of Australians Notice Giant UFOs. Perhaps they should’ve done a bit of fact-checking on this one.
- On Saturday, I was quoted in The Saturday Paper in an article headlined Web of abuse grows as online bullies spread malice.
Corporate Largesse
- On Thursday, I went to the launch of the Microsoft Nokia Lumia 830 smartphone at Paramount House in Surry Hills, where I was of course given good canapés and wine. I also got a Lumia-branded tote bag containing a packet of Microsoft-branded jelly babies; a 2GB USB stick containing media information; and a loaner unit of the Lumia 830 itself. I’ll be using it over the next two weeks, and will report back at the end of that time.
- Also on Thursday, I went to the Indies Party, the annual not-quite-Christmas party held jointly by the PR agencies Bass PR, Shuna Boyd PR, Einsteinz Communications, and Espresso Communications. There was food and drink aplenty.
The Week Ahead
The coming week is both busy and more structure than usual. That said, my schedule is always subject to last-minute changes — whether that’s down to the news cycle, cashflow glitches, or simply not caring any more. As usual, the daily plan tweets my be found on my voluminous Twitter feed.
Monday should see the completion of an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast.
Tuesday is a Sydney day. I plan to attend the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Martin Place, though that will depend on me getting a decent sleep the night before. Then there’s a lunch briefing with the Australian government’s CTO, John Sheridan, then coffee with a PR agency, then two events in the evening. Audible is launching something or other with the hashtag #ListenUp, and Chinese tech giant Huawei is launching their new smart device. That looks like rather a long day, so I plan to stay overnight in Sydney.
Wednesday should see a morning of writing, then a meeting with executives from Slovakian information security company ESET, and some time at AVAR, the 17th annual conference of the Association of Anti-Virus Asia Researchers, which ESET is organising this year.
That conference runs through to Friday, but I’m not sure how much of it I’ll be able to catch. I still have my usual column for ZDNet Australia to write on Thursday, and some administrivia to deal with on Friday, and I hope to get some other bits and pieces of writing done too.
The weekend is yet again unplanned, as seems to be the usual way lately. At least at this stage.
Update 10 November 2014: Edited to add a section for 5at5, which I’d forgotten.
[Photo: Purple, being a flower of some Patersonia species, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages on 5 November 2014. It’s a Patersonia serica, according to Flower Checker.]
The WireLurker malware that affects Apple’s iOS and OS X devices has been in the technical news this week. That caught Will Goodings’ eye, as did the Forbes list of the world’s