Brexit and recession: if you think negatively that is how the economy will go

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Category: Private Thoughts

Rarely do I write a non IT article but little has changed in how people think in years. This article is not here to sway down remain or leave it is to talk about how people think and how more importantly what we read influences us.

In November 2010 I was at a sizeable business event in a London hotel with the guest speaker being (Sir) Vince Cable, ex business secretary in the coalition government. Before the event I put my name down to ask a question. My question was roughly around during or in the run up to a recession if the media reports negatively and everyone reads it, it will make a recession worse.

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Backup! Data loss can happen to anyone including me who is paranoid on security and privacy

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Category: Cyber Security (Personal)

As you can imagine from my websites name I take security and privacy extremely seriously unlike a lot of companies who say this but do not. It is called do as you preach. Drive encryption, hardware encrypted USBs, file encryption, UTM firewall, web filtering, long passwords, encrypted DNS, application whitelisting, little cloud used and so on. My security would likely beat the strength of most central government departments.

On Wednesday I was happily using my speedy, well looked after and well maintained SSD desktop. Without notice the computer bluescreened (BSoD) while using an internet browser. It turned itself off and after turning it on it said insert boot media which means no HDD/SSD is present or no operating system is loaded. Resetting the CMOS, removing the CMOS battery or swapping the SATA and power cable did not help. It was not seen by the motherboard nor did inserting it into another computer make it visible.

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Help we are under attack! Let’s create a hundred-page defence plan not actually roll out the big guns

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Category: Cyber Security (Personal)

Picture this Pakistan the arch foe of India, fly fighter jets over the sovereign airspace of India and attack a small defence-less remote village. India will quickly and without too much bureaucracy roll out mobile AA (anti-aircraft) defences mounted on trucks to the borders and to key cities. Countries and others, from the United Kingdom to India, can be overly bureaucratic but in times of emergencies that should go out the window.

Over the years I have seen an assortment of companies, from tiny to the giant, from aircraft engineering companies to penetration testing and defence contractors. They have all had something in common, ISO 27001 or ISO 9001. The first is an information security framework and the latter a quality management system. Why did they get this externally audited certification? Simple, to tick a box and possibly so they could bid.

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