This Weekly Wrap is actually eight Weekly Wraps in one, covering Monday 6 February to Sunday 2 April 2017, numbers 350 to 357. Eight times the value!
Of these four weeks, I’ve spent roughly a week each in San Francisco, Ho Chi Minh City, and Canberra. I also visited a Cold War relic near San Francisco, namely Nike Missile Site SF-88L at Fort Barry. Other stuff happened too.
There’s so much in this Eight-Week Wrap, the bulk of it is over the fold. I won’t be able to list all the highlights, but I will mention two of the lowlights. I caught a conference plague, which slowed me down a bit. And my stress and anxiety levels, which had not been declining, went through the roof. And they’re still there.
This health issue is being addressed, so no sympathy is needed. (Instead, perhaps send me a tip to help with the revenue shortfall, especially with the low-reveue holiday periods of Easter and Anzac Day coming up.) But it does mean that my alleged plans for the next few weeks should be taken with an even bigger grain of salt than usual.
Anyway, here we go…
Articles
- Block adverts, delete Flash, kill Java: ASD, ZDNet Australia, 6 February 2017. This yarn introduces the latest cybersecurity advice from the Australian Signal Directorate (ASD). Their Top Four cybersecurity mitigation strategies list has become the Essential Eight.
- Australian Cyber Roo hops to San Francisco seeking trade, ZDNet Australia, 21 February 2017.
- Cyberwar talk is getting real, ZDNet Australia, 23 February 2017.
- Your cyber defences are probably wrong, again, ZDNet Australia, 24 February 2017.
- Failing to secure DNS is ‘savage ignorance’: Geoff Huston, ZDNet Australia, 3 March 2017.
- We must make the ‘right choices’ when designing algorithms: Tim O’Reilly, ZDNet Australia, 6 March 2017.
- First come the breach disclosures, then come the lawyers, ZDNet Australia, 9 March 2017.
- Machine learning can also aid the cyber enemy: NSA research head, ZDNet Australia, 15 March 2017.
- Australia’s dream to teach the world to cyber, ZDNet Australia, 16 March 2017.
- Fiddle with something long enough, Twitter, and it’ll break, ZDNet Australia, 31 March 2017.
Podcasts
None. But see below.
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday 7 February, I spoke about the (il)legalities of re-streaming Pay TV to the internet on ABC Darwin. I may or may not post this audio. Stay tuned, or something.
- On Thursday 23 February, I spoke about a bunch of cyber issues on ABC Melbourne. Ditto re the audio.
- One of my photos was used to illustrate a story at The Conversation on Friday 24 February, Our big cities are engines of inequality, so how do we fix that? I like seeing my photos being put to use, so I’ll be going back through my Flickr photostream to make more of them available for re-use.
Corporate Largesse
- I travelled to the RSA Information Security Conference (RSAC) San Francisco from 12 to 19 February as a guest of RSA Security LLC, a different but related company. They covered SYD-SFO flights with United; three nights accommodation at the Kimpton Sir Francis Drake Hotel; a branded Bluetooth speaker; and plenty of food and drink. HOB Cyber Security: A Hobzee set, which is Yahtzee but in binary. Infoblox: Lunch at The Keystone; a signed copy of the book DNS and BIND by Cricket Lui and Paul Albitx (O’Reilly, 5th edition, 2006).
- I flew to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, from 25 February to 6 March for the FIRST Technical Colloquium and the APRICOT/APNIC conference. APNIC covered flights SYD-SIN-SGN and return; airport transfers; six nights accommodation at the Sheraton Saigon Towers; and plenty of food and drink. I’d have experienced even more of the hospitality, but for coming down with conference plague. The rest of the stay was on my own dime.
- On 9 March, I went to a briefing at the offices of Nuix, who provided a lovely variety of food.
- I was in Canberra from 14 to 18 March at my own expense to cover the annual conference of the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). The conference, through its sponsors, provided plenty of food and drink, plus I had further drinks thanks to Sense of Security and FireEye.
- On 23 March, I had a delightful lunch at the 55 Riley Street Garage in Woolloomooloo, which Infoblox put on their tab.
The Week Ahead
Monday will see me tidying up the mess I left at the end of this week. Many loose ends.
On Wednesday, I’ll record the next episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, streaming it live from stilgherrian.com/edict/live/ at 2100 AEST. You still have time to support this podcast with a one-off contribution.
(For those of you who’ve been asking about ongoing contributions, I still intend to set up a better system for that, probably using Patreon. I suspect that won’t be finalised for a few weeks, however.)
On Thursday, it’s the long commute to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing by Gemalto. If you need to catch up with me in Sydney, that’d be a good day.
In between those things, well, I’ll see how it goes.
Update 6 April 2017: Edited to reflect dropping Thursday’s trip to Sydney from the plan.
[Photo: Sunset over Ho Chi Minh City , photographed on 1 March 2017. Many thanks to APNIC for providing this view.]