David Salt, Australian National University et David Harvey, Australian National University
The information revolution is hurtling towards Antarctica in the shape of a 20 centimetre cube weighing less than 10 kilograms. It can’t come soon enough. Not because Antarctic scientists (numbering more…
This month’s launch of the .xxx internet domain, a new section of the internet dedicated to pornography and erotica, is getting people hot and bothered. The global body coordinating internet addresses…
Two recent hacking incidents have highlighted the increasing fragility of the internet’s core infrastructure. They serve as a stark reminder that online security is somewhat illusory. The weaknesses have…
Net neutrality was succinctly described in a recent study as “the belief that ISPs [internet service providers] must treat all internet content equally”. Without net neutrality we see situations such as…
It inspired the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. It’s the best thermal conductor we know of. It’s a crystal stiffer than diamond, but able to stretch by 20% of its length, and can carry a current density one…
On July 19, Doctor Nefario, founder of the Global Bitcoin Stock Exchange, arrived at Seattle airport and was asked if he had enough money to cover his stay in the US. He replied that he did, but that it…
“God dammit, Gil,” shouted Bill Gates. “Why are you spending $400 million on this junk? Steve knows nothing about technology. He’s just a kind of super salesman. Virtually everything he thinks and says…
Google chairman Eric Schmidt will make history tomorrow as the first IT/internet executive to deliver the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. In doing so, he will face…
It was announced overnight that cryptography researchers have found a “vulnerability” in the encryption scheme used in the vast majority of secure online transactions – a scheme known as AES-256. Every…
Beautiful women make great con people, as do handsome men. Why? Because, for better or worse, we are predisposed to trust beautiful people more than normal-looking folks. But what if we take it one step…
Alongside serious reportage of bad news, you’ve probably come across at least one crisis meme that treats that bad news with a dose of ghoulish humour. Just hours after the Daily Mail printed the image…
Welcome to If I had a blank cheque … a series in which leading researchers reveal what they could (and would) do in their discipline if money were no object. Today we hear from Dr Kate Cornick, Executive…
As you’ll know by now, hacktivist group Anonymous has vandalised the home page of the Syrian Ministry of Defense, posting a message which started: “To the Syrian people: the world stands with you against…
Las Vegas has a long association with people on the fringe of society but even Hunter S. Thompson’s characters Raoul Duke and his drug-soaked Samoan lawyer would have found visitors to the DefCon hacker…
In a joint statement published earlier this week, hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec urged readers to boycott e-commerce giant PayPal, claiming: “PayPal continues to withhold funds from WikiLeaks, a…
Commentary from some sections of the IT community on the recent killings in Norway reminds us national security is still haunted by two visions: 1) With enough data it will be possible to comprehensively…
Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Deputy Dean Research at Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of Melbourne