Casey Tonkin, Information Age

A lifelong technophile and science fiction geek, Casey joined Information Age in 2019. With interests in AI, space travel, and post-humanism, Casey is always on the hunt for the overlap of science-fact and science-fiction.

Utopia
Politics

National Audit Office says the Morrison government wasted millions in tendering on the Entrepreneurs’ Programme

- June 29, 2022 3 MIN READ

The government mishandled $163 million worth of contracts for the Entrepreneurs’ Programme by favouring incumbents, not measuring tender applicants against the stated criteria, and failing to mitigate against conflicts of interest, a report from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has found. In 2019, the Department of Industry, Science, Energy, and Resources (DISER) put service provision… Read more »

The IT Crowd
People

Finding IT workers is a big problem for a third of Australian companies

- June 23, 2022 2 MIN READ

Australian businesses continue struggling to find staff, including IT professionals, as the ongoing labour shortage worsens. Almost one third (31% of employers the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) surveyed said they couldn’t find suitable candidates for jobs. Tom Joseph, Head of Industry Statistics at the ABS, said businesses weren’t getting many applicants for open job roles… Read more »

People

Tesla chair Robyn Denholm says Western Sydney is a ‘technology powerhouse’

- June 16, 2022 2 MIN READ

Western Sydney is poised to produce Australia’s next generation of IT workers and high value tech companies, according to Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm. In her acceptance speech for the inaugural Florence Mary Taylor Innovation Medal, Denholm described her upbringing in Milperra, a suburb just past Bankstown in Southwestern Sydney. “My parents owned a service station in the… Read more »

Cyber security

Atlassian just had a big cybersecurity scare on its Confluence Server

- June 8, 2022 2 MIN READ

Spare a thought for admins running Atlassian Confluence Server or Data Centre on the weekend after a cyber security company discovered bad actors actively exploiting a previously undiscovered vulnerability in those Atlassian products. On Friday morning, Steven Adair, President of security firm Volexity, tweeted about the vulnerability, saying it was “10/10 on the badness scale”. “Get your… Read more »

Cryptocurrency

The most anyone now wants to pay for the $4 million NFT of Jack Dorsey’s 1st tweet is $42,000

- April 19, 2022 2 MIN READ

The man who bought an NFT of Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet for nearly $4 million tried to auction it for $65 million – but the highest bid came in at less than $400. Sina Estavi, CEO of Malaysian blockchain company Bridge Oracle, famously jumped at the opportunity to buy a copy… Read more »

Politics

$1.3 billion defence drone project canned as Budget spends $10 billion on boosting offensive cybersecurity capabilities

- April 7, 2022 2 MIN READ

The government’s REDSPICE cyber security program – a $9.9 billion centrepiece to last week’s budget – has come at the cost of a $1.3 billion Sky Guardian drone project which has already set taxpayers back $10 million, senate estimates revealed on Friday. Despite the $9.9 billion headline figure championed by the Treasurer in his budget speech, a… Read more »

Fintech

ANZ’s crypto stablecoin, minted for a billionaire and rich investors, is a reminder that de-banking remains a threat to smaller fintechs

- March 29, 2022 3 MIN READ

ANZ bank has minted its own stablecoin, A$DC, becoming the first Australian bank to create its own cryptocurrency with a value pegged to the Australian dollar. The ANZ stablecoin was created for the billionaire Smorgon family’s investment firm Victor Smorgon Group, which was issued with the 30 million A$DC in February. Unlike other popular stablecoins, A$DC… Read more »

Cyber security

Hacking group Anonymous targets Russia in cyber war

- March 1, 2022 3 MIN READ

Infamous hacking collective Anonymous is taking aim at Russian infrastructure and its President Vladimir Putin following the country’s invasion of Ukraine last week. Twitter accounts purporting to represent Anonymous claimed responsibility for taking out websites belonging to the Russian government, banks, news outlets, and a gas company through distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks. A video posted… Read more »

Troy Hunt
Cyber security

Troy Hunt, the cybersecurity expert behind Have I Been Pwned, on the sector’s biggest myths and why we should be worried about IoT devices

- February 25, 2022 3 MIN READ

Your passwords aren’t safe, the internet of things is ripe for abuse, and hackers don’t always wear hoodies – this is some of the wisdom shared by cyber security expert and creator of the Have I Been Pwned website, Troy Hunt at the ACS Reimagination Thought Leaders’ Summit 2022. In an entertaining talk delivered to… Read more »

quantum chip
Topics

What Australia needs to do to keep its quantum advantage

- February 17, 2022 4 MIN READ

Interest in quantum computers is taking off as governments and big business look for ways to gain a competitive edge through cutting edge technology. In this three-part series, we look at how quantum computers work, their applications, and the continued role Australian scientists and engineers play in the technology’s development. Australia led the early charge… Read more »

Cryptocurrency

The rapping economist arrested over a $7bn crypto hack wrote for Forbes on protecting yourself from cybercriminals

- February 10, 2022 2 MIN READ

A married couple has been arrested in the US for allegedly possessing and trying to launder 119,754 Bitcoin, today worth $7.4 billion, that were stolen in the 2016 breach of the Bitfinex exchange. The US Justice Department arrested husband-and-wife duo Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and Heather Morgan, 31, this week for their alleged involvement in laundering… Read more »