Using Yahoo Pipes to Gather AU Data Disclosure Information

Whilst I whole-heartedly enjoy reading (chasing more like it) my 100 or so security blogs, sometimes the noise that’s generated by a couple of those blogs is overwhelming. One feed in particular, whilst been really interesting and providing a constant source of information, is also particularly good at being filled with white noise, and that is the PogoWasRight Privacy News Feed. When trying to squeeze in some feed reading time at work, I often find myself skimming this blog, or simply marking all items as read. Unfortunately, that means that from time to time I may miss an interesting privacy article or disclosure relating to Australia. I guess, until the Privacy Act is amended to mandate compulsory disclosures these types of articles only come around from time to time. Trying to engage and involve myself in the Australian information security profession often means that I have to be able to cite certain incidents that happened closer to home.

Introducing my first Web 2.0 MashUp. Actually, it’s more like a strip-down as it’s not so much as mashing data together as stripping it apart. By using Yahoo Pipes it was really simple to create a new feed which takes in the PogoWasRight feed, and then apply an advanced searching mechanism (read: item.title regex “^AU”) to output a new feed which is available here. (Who needs 1000 monkeys typing at 1000 type-writers?)

Now I’m sure there’s plenty of other really useful stuff that could be done, but I think this is a pretty good start. For all you other budding Mashers there’s plenty of documentation and training vids to be found within Yahoo Pipes

Posted by Christian 4 March 2008

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