The metadata retention debate is heating up with Prime Minister Tony Abbott telling us the cost of not going ahead with compulsory retention of metadata will be incalculable and will represent a form of…
Let me see if I’ve got this right…
Christopher Furlong/Pool/Reuters
Dear Prime Minister Cameron, You recently proposed that all internet apps – and their users’ communications – be compelled to make themselves accessible to state authorities. I want to explain why this…
We don’t need any more internet off-switches, thanks.
deadhorse
Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that the UK government will look at “switching off” some forms of encryption in order to make society safer from terror attacks. This might make a grand statement…
Webcams have been made public because their passwords weren’t changed from the default.
Flickr/Cory Doctorow
There are concerns that thousands of private webcams around the world could be streaming live images to anybody who wishes to view them – without their owner knowing – thanks to a Russian website providing…
When all your appliances are internet-enabled, whose hands are holding the remote control?
Hands image via www.shutterstock.com.
An ever-increasing number of our consumer electronics is internet-connected. We’re living at the dawn of the age of the Internet of Things. Appliances ranging from light switches and door locks, to cars…
The social media verdict is out on Nova Peris, but her privacy was clearly violated to create a scandal, forcing her to respond in parliament.
AAP/Alan Porritt
When Frances Abbott’s private scholarship award was “exposed”, when poetry professor Barry Spurr was outed for his inflammatory emails and when Senator Nova Peris was devastated by the leaking of her private…
There’s no physical fences in cyberspace, that doesn’t mean there’s no border controls.
paolo_cuttitta
While there is only one world power on the internet, that situation will not last forever. The internet’s underpinning technologies were mostly created in the US, the initial networks were based there…
Digitising public services and putting them online to reap the cost and efficiency benefits is something that’s been tried with varying degrees of success. The UK government’s “digital by default” policy…
Better bash that bash bug, big time.
isak55/Shutterstock
A first and quite reasonable thought readers may have will be to wonder: what is bash? When you use a computer you probably interact with it through a point-and-click, visual interface such as Windows…
Jennifer Lawrence was the victim of hacking.
Ettienne Laurent/EPA
Recent reports of celebrities having nude or risqué photos of themselves leaked online highlights the serious risk of hackers getting access to our personal pictures. While many of us take inane and uninteresting…
A year on from Edward Snowden’s revelations around state sponsored mass surveillance programs, some of the major players in the online and technological world (including Google, Mozilla, Twitter and Reddit…
New bugs in the code for OpenSSL.
Flickr/Guilherme Tavares
Computer system administrators around the world are groaning again as six new security problems have been found in the OpenSSL security library. OpenSSL is a security tool that provides facilities to other…
The internet’s original auction site is in a spot of bother.
cytech
The latest internet giant to have its security compromised is eBay. A database containing user information has been hacked, leaving potentially millions of people vulnerable. The revelation is clearly…
James Lyne from IT security firm Sophos recently carried out a two-day public awareness exercise as part of the InfoSec 2014 conference. In a low-emission variation of war driving, Lyne cycled around the…
Heartbleed, the bug that has preoccupied thousands of websites and millions of users over the past week, may well have been the biggest security flaw in internet history but it is unlikely to be the last…
Are you ready to say good bye to Windows XP?
Flickr/Rowell Dionicio
Almost 13 years after its release in October 2001 to a world still in shock after the 9/11 terror attacks, the sun is finally setting on Microsoft’s Windows XP. The operating system has been the software…