What if it's not AI but the algorithm to blame? Opinion It was a bold claim by the richest and most famous tech founder: bold, precise and wrong. Laughably so. Twenty years ago, Bill Gates promised to rid the world of spam by 2006. How's that worked out for …
Ye cannae change the laws of physics, but you can change your mind Opinion Apple is good at security. It's good at processors. Thus GoFetch, a major security flaw in its processor architecture, is a double whammy.... [...]
Mistakes years in the making tell a universal story that must not be ignored Opinion Quiz time: name one thing you know about the Library of Alexandria. Points deducted for "it’s a library. In Alexandria." Looking things up is cheating and you know it.... [...]
When you can't lock 'em up, lock 'em out Opinion The best cop shows excel at mind games: who's tricking whom, who really wins, and what price they pay. A twist of humor adds to the drama and keeps us hooked. It's rare enough in real life, far less …
Unique institutions need unique security. Instead, they're fobbed off with the same old, same old Opinion The British Library’s showpiece site, in a listed red brick building in St Pancras, is presided over by a large bronze sculpture depicting Isaac Newton poring over a document he’s working …
Genuinely new ideas are rare in IT – this superhero is ready to make a real difference Opinion Cybersecurity has many supremely annoying aspects. It soaks up talent, time, and money like the English men's football squad, and like that benighted institution, the results never seem to change.... [...]
Snoopers Charter: Dead cows don't snitch Opinion Information wants to be free. This usefully ambiguous battle cry has been the mischievous slogan of hackers since early networking thinker Stuart Brand coined it in the early 1980s. Intended as part of a discussion about the inherent contradictions of intellectual property …
Clue: Nothing like what’s on offer today Opinion "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today," fumed Admiral David Beatty during 1916's Battle of Jutland. Fair enough: three of the Royal Navy's finest vessels had just blown up and sank.... [...]
Old architectures just don't stack up Opinion Most data theft does clear harm to the victim, and often to its customers. But while embarrassing, the cyberattack against MSI in which source code was said to be stolen is harder to diagnose. It looks like a valuable company asset that's …
ByteDance with the devil if you dare Opinion As country after country bans TikTok from official systems, it’s fair to ask what’s so dodgy about a social network filled with dance crazes, makeup advice and cats.... [...]
Any sufficiently stupid technology is indistinguishable from magical thinking Opinion Around the world, a vital technology is failing. Just as massive solar flares fry satellites and climate-change superstorms overwhelm flood defences, so a new surge of ridiculous IT-related events is burning out irony meters across the globe.... [...]
Tech has changed in 400 years. The rules haven’t Opinion Mary, Queen of Scots, was a hapless CEO, even by the standards of 1600s Europe. Mother of the first Stuart King of England, James I (and VI of Scotland; let's not go into that), she was herself the …
Excuse me, citizen, did you packet this data yourself? Opinion The tech sector is failing at cybersecurity. Global spending on the stuff is at $190 billion a year, a quarter of the US defense budget. That hasn't stemmed an estimated $7 trillion in annual cybercriminal damages. People are fond …
Challenge your people to try to break into your systems, and see how interesting life gets for your colleagues Opinion People are the biggest problem in corporate infosec. Make them the biggest asset.... [...]
Many of last week's security stories tell the same tale Opinion The calls are coming from inside the house! Lately, Outlook users have been getting their own version of this classic urban horror myth. The email system is alerting them to suspicious activity on their accounts, and helpfully providing …
If Sherlock was alive today, he’d pack a Pi next to pistol and pipe Opinion Almost exactly a month ago, we noted a splendid piece of academic research into Google's data-gathering and consent practises.... [...]
Android messaging heist isn't the action of a well company. Let us help Opinion One of the joys of academic research is that if you do it right, you can prove the truth. In the case of computer science professor Douglas Leith, this truth is that Google has been …
Data security looks very different when your life depends on it Opinion Stress-testing security is the only way to be sure it works. Until then, the worst security looks much the same as the best. As events in Ukraine show, leaving the stress-testing of assumptions until a threat is …
How sad would you be to see AV go? Us neither Opinion Game knows game. Thus it came as little surprise that Norton's consumer security software not only sprouted a cryptominer that slurps your computer's life essence and skims a cut, but that it's hard to turn it off …
It worked on Jolly Roger, it can work on ProudWhiteGuy66373 Opinion Three things on the morning news reliably ruin breakfast for socially aware technogeeks.... [...]
Terms and conditions apply, and that’s a good thing Opinion Personal data is the oil of the internet. The great engines of Facebook and Google pump it relentlessly, burning it at will to power their marketing monetisation magic. The pollution it creates in broken privacy, shattered politics and …
Cupertino can see things you people wouldn't believe Opinion For a company built around helping people communicate, Apple sure has problems talking to folk. It pole-vaulted itself feet first into the minefield of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), saying that it was going to be checking everybody's images whether …
If we trust it, crooks will too – meaning Plod can get their kiloscrote nab Column Back in October, a call by spy agencies to weaken end-to-end encryption "because of the children" provoked a bit of analysis on how many times UK Home Secretaries had banged the same drum. All …
One can’t spell shit without IT, but for Pete's sake it doesn't need to be in your endpoints Column Fans of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy know how top military secrets are extracted from the enemy. Senior figures are turned in operations run by the …
Also: The basic utility of the general purpose OS cannot be sanitised into total safety. Nor should it Column You will have noticed that Apple just pushed MacOS under the wolves, thrown it to the bus and left it hanging out to dry like a post-Brexit fishing net.... [...]