Several times over my career I’ve wondered why I was dealing with problems which seemed to be so trivially preventable that it should count as negligence. The question kept occuring to me, why do we accept this level of preventable risk and cost, why doesn’t cyber security legislation pay a more effective role? I’m not […]
Sharing Data Safely – Part 1
One of the challenges of working in an organisation as large as the University of Cambridge is sharing data safely and effectively. This challenge triggered a recent conversation about how staff are expected to differentiate legitimate University emails from phishing emails. It’s not a trivial or facile question; due to the federated nature of the […]
Talking about cyber security
My job frequently involves talking about cyber security, and I’m lucky enough to enjoy it. Unfortunately, I was recently I on the receiving end of some poorly communicated security messaging. It started when I was passed a scanned copy of a letter which alerted the recipient to ‘opportunities for improvement’. I think it would be […]
Planning vs Reality
I woke up this morning and looked back on the total car crash which is my week, classic planning vs reality. It was another 45-50 hour week with not a lot to show for it. I’ve reflected on this, and concluded that the reason is obviously bad planning on my part. The mistake I made […]
Let’s try that again
My website has always been an experiment (that’s my excuse anyway), and over time it’s been a shop front for my consulting company, generated enough affiliate income to pay for my hosting and been a place where I wrote things down as a way of processing and refining ideas, with communication of those ideas being […]