Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
“The internet company Yahoo has revealed it has been hacked again, this time losing a billion user accounts,” began ABC Radio’s The World Today report on Thursday.
Guess which muppet was interviewed by journalist Will Ockenden? Yeah, me.
Here’s the full four-minute story.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.8MB)
The audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is being served directly from the ABC website.
Yahoo was the victim of the biggest data breach in history, at least so far, so it was inevitable that I ended up talking about it in the media.
This is my conversation with Jonathan Green on ABC Radio National Drive on Friday night.
Yahoo has confirmed the theft of user data including e mail addresses, birth dates, encrypted passwords and security questions. It took the internet giant two years to find out about the massive data breach. Stilgherrian is a Yahoo user and avid writer and commentator on the topic of cyber security and privacy. He talks to RN Drive about the incident.
And here’s what it sounded like.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:13 — 4.8MB)
This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and it’s served directly from the ABC website.
[Photo: The view in ABC Sydney TARDIS 1, photographed in April 2016.]
The week of Monday 25 to Sunday 31 March 2013 was hectic and varied — lecturing at a university, appearing on TV and being reminded how easily internet technology can fall apart.
The various media things are listed here, of course. What’s not listed is a sudden and unexpected day full of geekery that began at 0100 on (Good) Friday and ran well into the evening. A server software upgrade went pear-shaped. and I had to coordinate work between the server team in India and the data centre team in the US. Given that they had different responsibilities and authorities, I had to sign off on their plans. There’s some lessons in there that’d make an interesting blog post — but not yet.
This’ll be an interesting one because tomorrow, which is both the public holiday for Easter Monday and the start of a new quarter, I’m planning to kick off a series of changes in my little world. Or at least try to. I’ll write about that tomorrow morning afternoon.
I’ve also got plenty of writing lined up, including two pieces for Technology Spectator, one for CSO Online, one for Crikey and my usual column for ZDNet. This both pleases and stresses me. I may rearrange this a bit, because that’s rather a lot for a short week.
At this stage it’s looking like I’ll be in Wentworth Falls for the first part of the week, before heading down to Sydney on Friday morning to record Marc Fennell’s Download This Show for ABC Radio National.
[Photo: Shut up, I’m eating this flower, yet another photograph of a crimson rosella (Platycercus elegans) at Bunjaree Cottages. I feel like I’ve posted a few too many Bunjaree bird photos lately, but I couldn’t resist the seemingly-cheeky look this guy threw me while he ripped apart and ate the eating a mountain devil (Lambertia formosa) flowers from a nearby plant.]
[Update 1 April 2013, 1145 AEDT: Updated the ETA for the post about my plans to reflect the unfolding reality.]
The $30 million purchase of internet startup Summly by Yahoo!, the fourth most-visited online service, certainly attracted media attention today — thanks to founder Nick D’Aloisio being just 17 years old. So yeah, I did some radio.
I’ve just finished talking about that — and a whole bunch of semi-related issues like robot journalists and data mining — on ABC Local Radio around NSW with Rosie Beaton, who’s filling in for regular presenter Dom Knight.
I thought we’d talk for maybe five minutes, but it ended up being a 20-minute chat. Here’s the entire audio.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (10.5MB)
The audio is of course ©2013 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, archived here because it isn’t being archived anywhere else.
Labor Party dissent over internet censorship goes public. Shock horror: modern vigilantes use Facebook. And the interim Premier of New South Wales says a precedent is not actually a precedent.
Ladies and Gentlemen, despite the appalling service of the #badoptus network, here is episode 2 of The 9pm Edict. Finally.
You can listen to this episode below. But if you want them all, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:18 — 10.1MB)
If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.
[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]
Amy Webb (now there’s an aptonym!) has updated her diagram of who owns the new media landscape. It’s also available as a PDF file.
Coming soon, a widget and RSS feed to help you track acquisitions and mergers in media.
I must admit, I’d much rather see this sort of data presented as a directed graph of ownership relationships, rather than simple lists — something like this diagram. The size of the nodes could represent the companies’ market capitalisation, and width of the lines the percentage ownership or something.
Still, it’s a handy-enough reference.
Hat-Tip to Lee Hopkins.