Junctions podcast

This report outlines the development process for Junctions, an original, mini-drama podcast that explores racial bias in the context of everyday interaction. The report consists of three sections – The Podcast, Pilot Episode, and Future Episodes – each of which speaks to a different aspect of the program’s framework. It also includes nearly all of the planning documents I created during pre-production, production, and post-production.Radio-Television-Fil

Oops they did it again: The 2007 Australian study of remnant data contained on 2nd hand hard disks

The 2007 study used a biased selection process where the primary focus was the purchase of high-speed SCSI drives and drive packs, in addition 2.5 inch laptop drives were targeted. Conventional IDE based hard drives were also examined in the study. A total of 84 drives were examined this year, 23 yielded data that represented significant and in some cases profound exposure if data. Encouragingly more hard disks were erased in this study than in previous studies. However, there is still a significant gap in erasure procedures in organisations, which is particularly concerning given that the drives were from large corporations

Issues common to Australian critical infrastructure providers scada networks discovered through computer and network vulnerability analysis

This paper reports on generic issues discovered as a result of conducting computer and network vulnerability assessments (CNVA) on Australian critical infrastructure providers. Generic issues discovered included policy, governance, IT specific such as segregation, patching and updating. Physical security was also lacking in some cases. Another issue was that previous security audits had failed to identify any of these issues. Of major concern is that despite education and awareness programs, and a body of knowledge referring to these issues, they are still occurring. It may be necessary for the federal government to force organisations to undergo computer and network vulnerability assessment from recognised experts on a regular basis

Homosexuality and the Construction of “Anglican Orthodoxy” : The Symbolic Politics of the Anglican Communion

Peer reviewedPostprin

The 2009 analysis of information remaining on USB storage devices offered for sale on the second hand market

The use of the USB storage device, also known as the USB drive, a thumb drive, a keychain drive and a flash drive has, for the most part, replaced the floppy disk and to some extent the Compact Disk (CD), the DVD (Digital Video Disk or Digital Versatile Disk) and the external hard disk. Their robustness, size and weight make them easy to transport, but also to lose or misplace. They are inexpensive and are often given away as promotional items by organisations. Over the last few years there has been a dramatic increase in the storage capacity of these devices, going from a few tens of megabytes to a current capacity of around 64 gigabytes (equal to around 13 DVDs). The larger capacity and continued low cost has vastly increased the potential uses of the devices and also the volumes and types of data that they may contain

A Threat to Cyber Resilience : A Malware Rebirthing Botnet

This paper presents a threat to cyber resilience in the form of a conceptual model of a malware rebirthing botnet which can be used in a variety of scenarios. It can be used to collect existing malware and rebirth it with new functionality and signatures that will avoid detection by AV software and hinder analysis. The botnet can then use the customized malware to target an organization with an orchestrated attack from the member machines in the botnet for a variety of malicious purposes, including information warfare applications. Alternatively, it can also be used to inject known malware signatures into otherwise non malicious code and traffic to overloading the sensors and processing systems employed by intrusion detection and prevention systems to create a denial of confidence of the sensors and detection systems. This could be used as a force multiplier in asymmetric warfare applications to create confusion and distraction whilst attacks are made on other defensive fronts

Eco-hydrology of dynamic wetlands in an Australian agricultural landscape: a whole of system approach for understanding climate change impacts

Increasing rates of water extraction and regulation of hydrologic processes, coupled with destruction of natural vegetation, pollution and climate change, are jeopardizing the future persistence of wetlands and the ecological and socio-economic functions they support. Globally, it is estimated that 50% of wetlands have been lost since the 1900’s, with agricultural changes being the main cause. In some agricultural areas of Australia, losses as high as 98% have occurred. Wetlands remaining in agricultural landscapes suffer degradation and their resilience and ability to continue functioning under hydrologic and land use changes resulting from climate change may be significantly inhibited. However, information on floodplain wetlands is sparse and knowledge of how ecological functioning and resilience may change under future land use intensification and climate change is lacking in many landscapes. These knowledge gaps pose significant problems for the future sustainable management of biodiversity and agricultural activities which rely on the important services supplied by wetland ecosystems. This research evaluates the impact that hydrology and land use has on the perennial vegetation associated with wetlands in an agricultural landscape, the Condamine Catchment of southeast Queensland, Australia. A geographical information system (GIS) was used to measure hydrological and land use variables and a bayesian modeling averaging approach was used to generate generalised linear models for vegetation response variables. Connectivity with the river and hydrological variability had consistently significant positive relationships with vegetation cover and abundance. Land use practices such as, irrigated agriculture and grazing had consistently significant negative impacts. Consequently, to understand how climate change will impact on the ecohydrological functioning of wetlands, both hydrological and land use changes need to be considered. Results from this research will now be used to investigate how resilient these systems will be to different potential scenarios of climate change

When are Contrarian Profits Due to Stock Market Overreaction?

The profitability of contrarian investment strategies need not be the result of stock market overreaction. Even if returns on individual securities are temporally independent, portfolio strategies that attempt to exploit return reversals may still earn positive expected profits. This is due to the effects of cross-autocovariances from which contrarian strategies inadvertently benefit. We provide an informal taxonomy of return-generating processes that yield positive [and negative] expected profits under a particular contrarian portfolio strategy, and use this taxonomy to reconcile the empirical findings of weak negative autocorrelation for returns on individual stocks with the strong positive autocorrelation of portfolio returns. We present empirical evidence against overreaction as the primary source of contrarian profits, and show the presence of important lead-lag relations across securities.