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 →

At least make a token effort

I was talking to someone about data security yesterday afternoon, and mentioned the Mexican data breach where 93.4m citizen records were left in an unsecured cloud database – and immediately stolen – as an example of the carelessness people seem to experience when taking advantage of cheap web storage and processing. Pretty much while I … Continue reading At least make a token effort →

And in other news…

Here’s today’s summary of all the security news that’s fit to print (and at least vaguely relevant to normal people). The ICO is preening over having effectively shut down a cold-calling firm that breached rules on automated calls. The fine? £350,000. The company’s reaction? Liquidation. Hmmm. So pop quiz: what will the ICO do the … Continue reading And in other news… →

Death of the internet or birth of better privacy?

Microsoft and Amazon have both revealed that they are building data centres in the EU. In Microsoft’s case, Deutsche Telekom will be the data “trustee”; I assume this is in part an anticipatory response to the ongoing Stored Communications Act lawsuit presently in progress in Dublin (in brief, a case to determine whether US government … Continue reading Death of the internet or birth of better privacy? →

Safe Harbor is officially dead. Now what? (Where’s your data: reprise)

A few days ago, I wrote about European Court of Justice Advocate General Yves Bot. He had decided that Facebook shouldn't have transferred data about an Austrian student to its US data centres. At the time, this was just an opinion. Now it's an official ruling by the ECJ. This is where it gets interesting. … Continue reading Safe Harbor is officially dead. Now what? (Where’s your data: reprise) →