The Justice Minister, the Hon Judith Collins is sick of cyber bullies. On Friday she announced that she had asked the Law Commission to fast track its recommendations for reducing the harm of cyberbullying. In her press release, the Minister refers to the “devastating effects”  and reducing the “potential for harm”. The work to which the Minister is referring is the Law Commission review [...]

Lee and I responded to questions about cyberbullying as part of the NZ Herald‘s week long focus on bullying. The live chat session lasted an hour and we responded to about 30 questions. It was an interesting experience for us both as we attempted to quickly answer  broad questions about the wider issue and provide [...]

At some point in the early-mid 1980′s, my father came home with a computer from work. I don’t remember if my father used it for his work in the evenings, or if it was a cast off – but we were allowed to use it after school. It was a BBC Micro. I recall that it [...]

I was asked to give a presentation in the Social Networking workshop of the Managing Digital Identity in a Networked World conference. Never one to shun a moment in the spotlight, I accepted, and set about constructing a presentation about developing a personal brand online. I felt the idea of personal branding was a logical [...]

Remember the old joke – “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog?” Its going to need updating because on the internet, somebody knows you’re a dog. In fact, somebody knows what sort of do you are, your breeding history, what dog sites you visit, and who you vet is. And I know this is [...]

I’m speaking at a meeting of technology people and I’m busy explaining the risks associated with some technology ( I don’t remember which one), and one of the meeting attendees doesn’t agree. He interrupts. Firstly, he says I have no evidence. In response, I give him the facts as best we know them. Then he counters [...]

I was driving (read “barely moving”) in Auckland’s morning traffic and one of the radio stations ran a piece about what ANZAC Day means to New Zealanders.  Because this was a commercial music station, they opted for a series of vox pops cleverly edited together for humorous effect. It wasn’t very funny, but it did get me thinking about [...]

Back when I was a kid, there were a number of media reports about the influence of American culture on New Zealand youngsters. I really didn’t know what they were talking about. Sure, I was singing along to “We’re the kids in America” and I knew I wasn’t actually American but generally, you aren’t conscious of the creeping [...]

Earlier this week I attended the Ignition Unconference held at Albany Senior High School.  The conference tagline was “helping schools be awesomeness incubators” – so who could argue with that? The attendees at Ignition are the sort of teachers you want for your children or grandchildren. They share a genuine passion for the art of education, [...]

After a period of thinking it was mostly harmless, the community now seems to accept that cyber bullying and harassment is a serious problem. As with most challenges to safety, the community would therefore like to find a solution. For this reason, the announcement by myFone that for a mere $200,000, they could put spyware on every [...]