My week Monday 27 May to Sunday 2 June 2013 was rather different from how I first imagined it.
I ended up spending much of it in Sydney, covering the CeBit Cyber Security conference and recording all manner of conversations — the results of the latter to appear over the coming weeks.
Articles
- Security goes military at CeBIT, iTnews, 30 May 2013.
- Australia, your lack of cyber transparency disturbs me, ZDNet Australia, 31 May 2013.
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday morning I spoke about the National Broadband Network (NBN) on Radio Adelaide’s breakfast program.
- On Tuesday evening I spoke about the alleged Chinese hack of ASIO on the BBC World Service program World Have Your Say.
Corporate Largesse
- On Tuesday I covered the CeBit Cyber Security conference, so as usual with such things there was food and drink.
- On Wednesday I had lunch at the Customs House Bar with some folks from Sourcefire, and they paid.
- On Wednesday night I was a guest of Kaspersky Lab at their dinner with Eugene Kaspersky at Aqua at Milsons Point. There was fine food and drink, a water taxi there and a Cabcharge voucher for the ride back.
The Week Ahead
Since it’s already quite late on Wednesday afternoon, all I’ll say is that I plan to head down to Sydney tomorrow, Thursday, for an interview recording — at least once I’ve got my ZDNet Australia column out of the way — and what happens for the rest of the week and the annoyingly-positioned long weekend will then depend upon circumstances.
And that’s not all I’m annoyed about.
[Photo: Night falls over Sydney, looking towards the CBD from Camperdown on 29 May 2013.]
Cupla typos
is eugene actually a Kaspersky?
>On Wednesday I has lunch – probably has = had
@Bryan Wetton: Thanks very much. I’ve fixified them.
Very mildly interested to know if the slight misquote of a paraphrase of Darth Vader’s “I find your lack of faith disturbing” was your original headline, or if it was imposed by editors. The final version is better — George Lucas always had a tin ear for dialogue — but the process that such things go through from your fingers to the world’s eyes amuses me.
@Eric TF Bat: In this case, it started from my (obviously faulty) memory of Darth Vader’s line. The email trail between me and editor Chris Duckett in which we negotiated the plan for last week’s column includes the following from me:
I didn’t actually check back for the original version, but I agree the new version is stronger. “Find” is a pussy verb. “Disturb” has a bit of oomph.
I’m assuming no-one else bothered to check, and someone decided to split “cybertransparency” into two words — possibly for SEO goodness, possibly because the line breaks were ugly.
More generally, practices relating to headlines vary wildly between the mastheads I write for. Some prefer or even require suggested headlines, which often stay. Some never want them, because they keep headlines on a tighter leash.
The sub-editor involved in breaking “cybertransparency” into two words has been dismissed.
It was the last straw!
Having now heard from both editor and sub-editor, and having weighed the evidence, I can see that justice has been done. Cyberjustice, even.
Correction: It was post-dismissal disruption.
A cyberdisruption, if you will?
Cyber disruption.
Time to shake it all up – live life on the edge.
I have learned many things from this comment stream.