GDPR: you’re all getting it wrong

If I get one more email telling me that “GDPR means we have to ask you to opt-in” I think I’m going to go postal. Let’s do this slowly, and this time with feeling. Marketing (and fundraising) emails are covered by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation 2003. That’s right, a 15-year-old piece of legislation. … Continue reading GDPR: you’re all getting it wrong →

Meltdown, Spectre and other James Bond movie titles

Hoo boy. Here we go again. More silly codenames, more incomprehensible tech gobbledegook, more security flaws, more worry. What does it all mean? I’m not going to give a detailed technical explanation. The best one is here. The very very short version is that processor speeds have run ahead of memory speeds for some time, … Continue reading Meltdown, Spectre and other James Bond movie titles →

It’s 2018 and we still can’t get basic things right

I wrote a blog entry five years ago, explaining why using security questions for password resets was a bad idea. (Why “improved” on-line security could compromise your bank account). It's still true, and we're still getting it wrong. Last week saw an American fined about £200k and sent to prison for nine months for hacking … Continue reading It’s 2018 and we still can’t get basic things right →

What does it take?

I wasn't going to blog about Carphone Warehouse being fined £400k by the ICO for a breach, because boring-boring-you've-done-this-before, but then I couldn't help myself. Carphone's offence? A data breach. Resulting from poor maintenance of cyber security on an internet-facing webserver. You remember TalkTalk? They were fined £400,000 just over a year ago. For a … Continue reading What does it take? →

Y2K wasn’t a rip-off; neither is GDPR

If 60’s and 70’s programmers had anticipated that their code would still be in use thirty-odd years later, we wouldn’t have needed a massive effort to fix the installed codebase before the century rolled over. But they didn’t, and we did. A lot of money was spent. The world didn’t end on the 1st of … Continue reading Y2K wasn’t a rip-off; neither is GDPR →

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality

Plutarch said it, so it must be true. “What is this?”, I hear you cry. “Have I stumbled upon some new age contemplative dribble when I was looking for sound advice on cyber-security?”. Well, no. Firstly, Plutarch is hardly new-age and secondly that’s all the philosophy you’re getting. This post is actually about Morrisons. There: … Continue reading What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality →