Stories by Rodney Gedda

Patriot Act, not products, ups Cloud risks for CIOs

The global release of Microsoft’s Office 365 last week has raised a simple, sobering thought about dealing with US Cloud providers – they are subject to the US Patriot Act and the data they manage may be accessed by the US government regardless of where it is stored around the world. Before CIOs shun Cloud services altogether, let’s put the news in context.

Rodney Gedda | 04 Jul | Read more

NSW DSTA adds risk management software

The NSW government department tasked with the state’s data centre reform program, the Department of Services Technology and Administration, has the green light to procure a software package to support internal audit and corporate risk management.

Rodney Gedda | 04 Apr | Read more

Days of individual security over, says IIA chief

People solely relying on patching and upgrades are leading themselves into a false sense of security and individual protection is no longer sufficient in the age of multi-vector attacks, according to the president of the Internet Industry Association of Australia.

Rodney Gedda | 29 Mar | Read more

Open source identity: Bitcoin technical lead Gavin Andresen

Originally from Melbourne, Australia but now living in the US, Gavin Andresen is the technical lead of the Bitcoin virtual currency system. Started by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, Bitcoin is a digital currency system consisting of an open source client and P2P network. The aim of the Bitcoin project is a decentralised, secure peer-to-peer currency system that does not rely on banks or central transaction processing authorities. To generate “Bitcoins” people on the network use a cross-platform, open source client developed in C++. In addition to the open source aspect of Bitcoin, there is now an emerging market in services around the cryptocurrency such as exchange portals and virtual clearing houses. Previously, the Open Source Identity series has featured interviews with Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson, Linux’s Linus Torvalds, Jan Schneider of Horde, Mark Spencer of Asterisk fame, Spine CMS creator Hendrick van Belleghem, Free Telephony Project founder David Rowe, and PulseAudio creator Lennart Poettering. This time we talk to Gavin Andresen about the new, decentralised approach to money – Bitcoin.

Rodney Gedda | 21 Mar | Read more

5 open source security projects to watch

Data security is always top of mind for CIOs and CSOs, and there is no shortage of challenges when it comes to picking the right tool for the job. With network and software vulnerabilities growing at a perpetual rate, good security software can help defend against many of the large-scale threats that occur locally and from all over the Internet. In this edition of 5 open source things to watch, we take a look at security products that will guard against threats without robbing your kitty.

Rodney Gedda | 20 Jan | Read more

Tax Office releases AUSkey for Linux

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has made good on its promise to support Linux in its next-generation authentication software, dubbed AUSkey, with the reference distribution being Ubuntu with the Firefox Web browser.

Rodney Gedda | 17 Dec | Read more