A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets and in the media and so on and so forth.
Articles
- Online privacy dangers: they’re not what you think, for Crikey. The article was based on an interview with Kevin Shaw, president of the International Association of Privacy Professionals – Australia and New Zealand (iappANZ) in the lead-up to their conference on 30 November, Silver Lining: The Privacy Umbrella of Cloud Computing.
- Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: not so evil after all, for Crikey. The final text of ACTA was negotiated on Monday. This is my brief news story. It’s behind the paywall for now – you can read it with a free trial of Crikey — but it’ll emerge in two weeks.
Podcasts
- Patch Monday episode 65, “Hello cloud, meet cookies. Goodbye privacy”. My interview with Kevin Shaw from iappANZ.
- A Series of Tubes episode 119. Ruckus Wireless engineer Steve Chung talks 802.11n streaming and I talk about the OECD’s comments on the National Broadband Network, privacy and crowdsourcing.
Media Appearances
- On Thursday I spoke with Paul Turton on ABC Radio’s Statewide Drive about the way hackers capitalise on news stories and the tragedy of people finding out about family deaths on Facebook. Alas, there is no recording.
Corporate Largesse
They have lovely biscuits at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
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. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.
[Photo: A close-up of my eyes, taken by Trinn (‘Pong) Suwannapha, cropped out of the photo he took for my US visa application.]
On Wednesday evening I had one beer (just one) with PPAU who mentioned a briefing being held in Pitt Street on Thursday 18th (near Angel Place so I was told). I understand there are issues PPAU have with this agreement.
Perhaps http://www.pirateparty.org.au/acta-release from Issue 1 Volume of “The Pirate Party Gazette” may shed some light on the views of PPAU with regards to ACTA. I believe some objections relate to patents on genes and similar issues.
As a token member of PPAU (I haven’t paid any subscription money) and nominee for the position of Deputy Treasurer http://www.pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Deputy_Treasurer I listened to other concerns such as “data retention” and noted when leaving that if the AEC have lost some of the files on the PPAU that perhaps …….
Bob
@Bob Bain: It’s a shame that the Pirate Party media release talks about “this morning” but isn’t dated. It’s a shame it starts off with a whine about what the treaty is called rather than addressing substantive matters. And it’s a shame it whinges about the process being “undemocratic and illegitimate” when it is, in fact, the normal process by which international treaties are negotiated.
If PPAU wants to have a go at that process — and certainly it’s old-fashioned — then they need to be a little better informed and certainly more focussed. Merely asserting that the process is “illegitimate” is a bit like shouting at the Australian Tax Office, “You have no right to make me pay taxes!” Just a little bit out of touch.
And complaining that the treaty is negotiated by “unelected officials”? I think the better term would be “experienced professionals”. Would they rather have untrained parliamentarians do it?
Um, no. Changes happened because professional negotiators had a target in mind and, in this case, achieved it. Everything else was a distracting noise, or at best fodder for the negotiations. Sometimes a document is leaked precisely because it’ll stir the feral goldfish into outrage.
Just like a poker game, trade negotiations don’t happen by putting all the cards on the table as a first step.
Jimmy Wales would be proud of that photo.
@andrewdotnich: I’m fairly sure Jimmy Wales would be more proud of me if I updated, say, the Wikipedia page about the AFACT v iiNet trial and appeal. He’s more handsome than me anyway. Or has a better stylist at least.