There are two stories alive in the press at the moment at two very different ends of the security spectrum. The first is the ongoing debate of the extent to which The Guardian's leaks of data released by US whistleblower/traitor (delete as per your viewpoint) Edward Snowden have impacted national security. The second is … Continue reading The bigger threat to national security?
Category: Politics
Last night and this morning there has been much coverage on the BBC news channels about government plans to create a "reserve cyber army" - territorial hackers, if you will. I do hope that this is an elaborate PR exercise and has little bearing on the reality of what our defence services are doing … Continue reading Cyberarmies
This morning, amongst the baby news, is coverage of David Cameron's latest big scheme - to make UK ISPs implement mandatory opt-out pornography filters on their services. Another great example of politicians not understanding the fallibility of technology. My mobile provider, Orange, currently provides such a service. It's one I've disabled, not because I'm a … Continue reading The Scunthorpe issue
I fundamentally don't trust Ian Duncan Smith. I do trust, however, that he holds deep beliefs that social security benefits dissuade people from working. For me, I agree, but only in the same way that I believe a lack of oxygen dissuades people from breathing. I don't think he's right about causality, and he and … Continue reading Balance of evidence-based policy
Numbers are an incredibly inhuman abstract construct. It's no coincidence that for some primitive tribespeople numbering systems progressed no further than "1, 2, many". Whilst pootling through the lanes of west Pembrokeshire this afternoon I heard the broadcaster Paddy O'Connell give a good demonstration of our appalling ability to handle things numeric. Standing in for … Continue reading Number blind
There have been a few events in the past week that have made me revisit a theme that I've had in my head for most of the last 15 years: that one of the crucial elements that holds back the Internet is a standard verifiable identity for individuals on the net, but that much … Continue reading Identity crisis
There are two unrelated news stories in the UK press this morning that have got me thinking about how it appears we need a really big crisis before change is easy to instigate. On the one hand there is the terrible story of organisational mismanagement in the NHS in the midlands, and on the other … Continue reading Change from crisis
My wife and I spent last weekend pottering around the sleepy villages of North Norfolk. Vegas it isn't, but having dropped the kids off with grandparents, we had two days to recharge and spend some time together. It was a nice little break, but one experience has stayed with me. We were queuing to pay … Continue reading An ageing digital population
There are a few key things that stand out from my memories of my University academic studies, and one of them is the ideas behind a book written in 1958 by Michael Young (father, I found out this morning, of journalist Toby) called The Rise of Meritocracy. In Young's satire, he paints a picture of … Continue reading Data enslavement
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