Discussing Cryptolocker and Internet of Things security on ABC Radio

This morning with Linda Mottram on ABC 702 I’ll be discussing Cryptolocker ransomware and the security of the Internet of Machines.

If you missed the program, you can listen to the segments through Soundcloud.

Tuesday morning with Linda Mottram on ABC 702 I’ll be discussing Cryptolocker ransomware, the security of the Internet of Machines and the tech industry’s call for less internet surveillance.

It’s only a short spot from 10.15am and I’m not sure we’ll have time for callers, but one of the big takeaways I’ll have for listeners is the importance of securing your systems against malware, there’s also some security ideas for business users as well.

We’ll probably get to mention the ACCC’s warnings on smartphone apps and the current TIFF bug in Windows as well.

If you’re in the Sydney area, we’ll be live on 702 from 10.15, otherwise you can stream it through the internet.

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ABC Nightlife Computers – explaining the internet of things

For the November 2013 Nightlife, we look at the Internet of things and smart cities

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy to discuss how technology affects your business and life. For the November 2013 Nightlife spot we’ll be looking at the internet of everything.

If you missed the show, you can listen to the recording at the Nightlife website.

The internet of everything is the next big thing in the tech industry, but what how is it any different from the web we know today that’s given us cute pictures of cats, Twitter and the end of newspapers? Some of the questions we’ll cover include;

  • what exactly is the internet of things?
  • how is it different from today’s internet?
  • is this just another tech industry slogan like big data or social media?
  • things like aircraft have been connected to the net for years, why is this suddenly news?
  • what sort of machines are we talking about connecting?
  • some industry pundits are saying this business could be worth $14 trillion dollars, where do they get this number from?
  • how are governments looking at using these technologies?
  • During the week it was reported Google have patented a tattoo with an embedded microphone.
  • so what happens when viruses get into our wearable technologies and connected fridge?

Part of the show will cover the geek’s tour of Barcelona and the interview with Antoni Vires, Deputy Mayor of the city on how the Spanish industrial centre sees it’s role as a connected city.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on the night on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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Where next for the NBN – ABC Nightlife technology

With a change of government, Australia’s troubled National Broadband Network is facing big changes

The National Broadband Network has always been a hot political issue in Australian politics and with the election of the new Federal government the often delayed project is being reviewed.

What does this mean for communities and businesses struggling with inadequate internet connections? Join Tony Delroy and Paul Wallbank from 10pm, October 17 on ABC Local Radio across Australia.

If you missed the program, you can listen to it as a podcast through the ABC Tony Delroy’s Nightlife page.

Some of the questions Tony and Paul be covering include;

  • Why did we need the NBN in the first place?
  • What’s happened to the NBN since the new government was elected?
  • Why are we are we having political arguments about an infrastructure upgrade?
  • What are the differences between fibre to the node versus fibre to premises?
  • Why is the NBN running so late?
  • How will the coalition’s change the slow rollout?
  • Australia’s come in around 40th on an international survey on Internet use. Is this because of the NBN?

We’ll also be looking at some other topics such a Google’s new advertising plan and how to drop out of it.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on the night on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia. If you’re outside the broadcasting area, you can stream the program through the ABC website.

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Blocking the bad guys – listeners’ questions from ABC Nightlife

Answers to listeners questions on Tony Delroy’s ABC Nightlife tech spot.

Last night’s ABC Nightlife looked at how email is evolving but most of our callers were concerned with configuring their email, anti-virus programs and blocking adverts on the web.

The audio of the program is available through the ABC website.

As usual, it’s tough to answer all the questions on live radio so here’s the ones from listeners Tony and I said we’d get back to.

Ad blockers

Website owners are desperately trying to find ways to make money from their sites, unfortunately its proving difficult so we’re seeing increasingly intrusive ads trying to distract us while we surf the web.

A number of Tony’s callers asked about adblocking programs to get rid of these irritating ads and there’s a few paid and free solutions available for computer users.

The most popular solution is Adblock, a plug in available for Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Android. The developers have a handy video guide to installing and configuring their product.

For Internet Explorer users, Simple Adblock is a plug in that should work with their browser.

Be aware with ad blocking programs that they may change the layout of the sites you visit so be prepared for some strange looking pages.

Also keep in mind that website owners are desperately trying to find ways to pay the bills, so you won’t stop the more cunning ads or sponsored content that pretends to be real news. You might also put a few online media sites out of business.

Anti-Virus programs

One common question from Nightlife listeners are what anti virus programs should they use.

Probably the simplest for Windows users is Microsoft Security Essentials or the free AVG Anti-Virus. For OSX Users, Clam AV and Sophos’ Free Anti Virus for Mac will do the job.

If you have Norton or McAfee anti virus programs on your Windows PC, then getting rid of the software is not straightforward. After uninstalling the software, you’ll have to run their removal tools which are available from the Symantec (Norton) or McAfee websites. Read the instructions carefully.

Switching to Hotmail

A curious thing about Microsoft is how they like to irritate loyal customers with interface changes that leave everyone confused. Hotmail users are among the latest victims after the company migrated them to the Outlook.com platform.

Deborah called in to ask how she could switch back to Hotmail from Outlook.com – sadly the official line from Microsoft is “you can’t”. It appears that all of the work arounds to get Hotmail back have also been closed down and the old service is no more.

For Deborah, the choice is to either get used to Outlook.com or investigate other online mail services like Gmail or Yahoo!.

The next ABC Nightlife will be on in around five weeks. Hope you can join us then.

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The madness of crowds – ABC Nightlife with Tony Delroy

On the May 2013 Nightlife radio show Tony Delroy and Paul Wallbank discuss crowdsourcing and crowdfunding

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightife across Australia to discuss how technology affects your business and life. For May 2013 we’ll be looking at crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.

The show will be available on all ABC Local stations and streamed online through the Nightlife website.

If you missed the show, you can download it from the Nightlife with Tony Delroy webpage.

Some of the topics we’ll discuss include the following;

  • what is crowdfunding?
  • how does it differ from crowdsourcing?
  • some people say crowdsourcing is a huge cost saver for business, is it?
  • crowdsourcing can be controversial as well, who get upset by it?
  • for creatives like musicians, writers and artists a lot are trying crowdsourcing, how is it going?
  • can crowdsourcing save journalism?
  • what are the ptifalls with crowdsourcing and crowdfunding

Some crowdsourcing and outsourcing resources we’ll mention include;

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on the night on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

Tune in on your local ABC radio station or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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ABC 702 mornings – Storage and your computer

How we deal with the information explosion in the age of Big Data is the topic of today’s 702 Sydney segment with Linda Mottram

This morning on 702 Sydney I’m talking to Linda Mottram on the decidedly unsexy topic of storage – hard drives, cloud computing and the struggle to keep up with ever expanding file sizes of documents, photos and downloads.

It’s an opportunity to revisit the How Much Data Does The Internet Need topic which I covered for Radio National last year, although almost certainly that needs updating.

Earlier this year networking vendor Cisco released its 2013 Virtual Networking Index which forecast global data traffic growing fourteen fold over the next five years.

Those bytes slopping around the internet have to come to rest on someone’s hard drive and this is what’s driving the storage crisis.

Yesterday US business site Venture Beat had an op-ed by an executive from Seagate, the world’s biggest hard drive manufacturer where he discussed the storage challenges with a claim from industry consultants IDC that worldwide computer storage is 2.7 zettabytes.

A zettabyte is a trillion gigabytes, or ten followed by twenty zeros – it’s the equivalent of a billion one terabyte hard drives that are standard on most cheap desktop computers.

Where those hard drives are located is the big challenge, is it on your laptop, smartphone or on a somewhere on a cloud service?

The other big challenge is what do you do with all this information – which is where the Big Data discussion comes in.

While data storage is a mundane topic, it’s a big one that matters. I hope you can tune in.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 222 702 or post a question on ABC702 Sydney’s Facebook page.

If you’re a social media users, you can also follow the show through twitter to @paulwallbank and @702Sydney.

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ABC Nightlife technology – April 2013

For the April Nightlife tech spot Tony Delroy and I be talking about the mobile phone turning 40, the end of the Internet and Windows 8.

For the April 2013 Nighlife spot Tony Delroy and I looked at the mobile phone turning 40, Windows 8 coming to an end, Blackberry’s chances of succeeding and what happens when the internet goes dark.

Danny Hillis gives a great discussion of what could happen if the internet was turned off along with the history of the net in this TED talk.

If you missed the show, you can download it from the Nightlife website.The next show will be on May 16 and we hope you can join us then.

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