Once were warriors of the smallest kind, our promise for the future

Who was surprised when this here piece entered their view? Not I. I not ed that a presentation of Yours Truly of Jan 2015 had:
Ello, Viv, YikYak, Tsu, Whisper, Kik, WeChat, Line, Viber, surespot, Whicker, Treema, KakaoTalk, Nimbuzz, Tango, MessageMe, Slack, HipChat, Peerio, Wizters, Secret, The Insider, Awkward, Cloaq, Chrends, Dropon … just as a sample list, so
To which already then, tons could have been added.

[Intermission quiz: Which ones did I forget then, that have made it big today ..? Or have perished again in the mean time ..? Or are still around but struggling ..?]

Some questions spring to mind:
Have you called your money manager to account over investing in every hype over and over again whereas the returns (after accounting for LGD) are so measly?
Why do we believe the hype, against old but still solid and supreme-quality advice?
How can we do better next time(s) ..?

Poor old/young Yik Yak. So much promise, snatched away at such a young age…
Plus:
[Not a unicorn, but somewhat rare; guess where (wrong, wrong again, and again …)]

Collaborative economy

Just a shout-out for some positive initiative, indicative of what you too, could do qua collaborative economy…: This, for all your poetry in business, in particular when you’re Dutch. Which might be an oxymoron of sorts, semantically…
Whatever. Just sponsor …

Plus:
[Past poetry in 3D; Zuid-As Ams]

Don’t lower the bridge … Wait.

Would it impact you when I told you that the world’s mountains all are getting lower..?
Because that is what results from global warming. Ice melts. Sea levels rise. The zero-level is that sea level (average), right? So any distance up from a risen mark, will be smaller. QED.

Or we’ll have to start measuring from some, fixed in some improbable way, sea bottom / land point but that may not be so easy, and as said also not fixed enough. And/or the earth’s shape may change, either being more perfectly round or moving the opposite way, more 3D-elliptoid. What will happen to the rotational speed of the earth? Will we have more that 24 hours in a day, to work ..? Dynamics, tensions in the earth’s crust, etc… all is flux, nothing is stationary: Heracleitos was very, very right.

If time slows down, we might live longer. Or time relativity, or we’ll not be able to live on this earth. Or …

And:
[Heat haze will be, and the fish will swim…; Barça]

M, and A, and G, D, P and R

Now that you have finally got something going qua GDPR compliance – way short of what you’d want but still, at least something, better than the Nothing to which you were limited so far – there is a new twist to the requirements…
To be clear; by now you should at least have the requirements clear, and also possibly have some upsides lined up (if not, go shop with some vendor consultancy (and others); they’ll tell you about the benefits of data minimisation, the unstress of having your house on order, etc.). And have something going qua reconnaissance, though not armed recce or recattack.

But now, you may have to rethink. A bit. About what you’d have to have prepared when you land in M&A territory, or even in Chapter 7/11/13- (and 9-!) or any glocal receivership. Because … well, the idea sprang from this thing with de-anonymising data from sperm banks (in NL); until now most highly classified secrets (qua donorship). Turns out that not all clinics have the old data, still, because previously the secret was to be eternal hence best secured by throwing away the data.
But more seriously, not all clinincs exist anymore and there is no way to know where the data went, if anywhere.

And that’s where you organisation comes in. Not qua LoB but qua existence, now and in the future. Will you buy, take over, integrate some other org, or be on the receiving (uh…) end of the turmoil? You may want to make sure that the “GDPR” record of the other party is impeccable… Or end up with a mixed compliance bag which is equal to no compliance…
Possibly, you may have to prepare for some form of end-of-organisational-life where there is no body to take over your data and you might have to prepare for that ..?

Well, we’ll see what WG29 comes up with. At least, it will be additional stuff.
Plus:
[In a weird twist of interpretation, this complex of buildings could have housed a private bank of said kind…; Sevilla BTW]

Parental Control – Surveilling your parents … Ew!

There you have it: Parental Control is needed more than ever, in a subtle way (I’d suggest you would do best to re-study The Cyber Effect; as I do), given the ever increasing (sic) risks online for the smaller than you.

But what about the more grown-up than you; your parents …? They either are only now, slowly, coming online, or they have been there already longer and have practiced but now are becoming older and mentally less capable or acute.
Hence, would we need to instate parental control to (also) mean: control over your parents (‘ their online behaviour)? And how would we have to arrange that; the norms for what e.g., appropriate content would be, are, ahem, not so clear. When a child would want to explore a vast portion of the Internet / its traffic, many agree that this would be either to be forbidden or a serious learning opportunity qua acceptability. When the one(s) that taught you about the birds and the bees would want to visit such sites, well, ew! but on the other hand…
Similar, qua gambling sites, hooliganism, et al. — not forbidden for any adult but where do things get out of hand, squared with how the capacity to operate in society may deteriorate with the elderly and where the thresholds might be.

Yes, in Europe, when you die your data (on socmed etc. too!) belongs to the government and your family has no rights over them. By consequence of some weird interpretations of obscure articles, contra reasonable moral and ethical expectations by relatives (either biologically/family-related or qua social media ‘friends’..?).
But for bank accounts et al., there have been practical rules and protocols already a long time, so that children (come of age) slide stepwise into custodianship. Would we need something similar for parents’ online behaviour? What would the rules of thumb look like, and could they be enforced somehow, to protect the weak against abuse ..?

Let’s discuss. And:
[Bridge too far? Cala aging again; Sevilla this time]

Colluding AI

As more and more grunt work (like, so much that’s done in the intenisve people farms called ‘offices’) is replaced with AI, how soon will we find that some decision by a human, hardly in control anymore but totally reliant on the precooked algorithmic outcome provided by AI, will be contested in court – that will be presided over by a judge, hardly in control anymore but totally reliant on the precooked algorithmic outcome provided by AI, and the two colliding against humans’ interests…

Note that “of course”, there will be humans nominally handing out the final verdict(s), because so many (not yet) fought so hard (not enough yet) to keep a ‘human in the loop’. But having achieved not much more than the nominal thing, and there quickly being far too little humans with enough experience (how would they gain that, when they haven’t gone through the grunt work themselves, including being allowed to err sometimes or how would they otherwise have learned ..?) to be able to usefully overrule the AI. Usefully, in the sense that the AI will have all the better, rational even if outlandish arguments… No more gut feelings … That may be part of what makes us human; whaddabout Kahnemann’s 90% System 1 ..?

And then, still, what when AI finds it rational to re-introduce the death penalty ..? Swiftly executed, to preempt appeals?

Oh how bright is our future! Also:
[There was supposed to be a shut-down button somewhere in one AI/pillar at least… Now they switch each other On again …; Córdoba]

Nudging to intermittance; 5 steps to awa success

As by now you have become accustomed to, this isn’t anything about five steps, or success. Or, I mean, the latter, maybe. Was triggered by the to be, should be classic on all thing #ditchcyber ψchology, where it discusses the lure of games and the reward structure therein. From there I wondered three things:

How can we deploy true gaming (not the quiz / survey kind) in raising, and maintaining, awareness in information security praxis for end users? Like, not the Training kind, but the Knowledge → Attitude → Behaviour – into eternity kind. For end users, and for infosec-(more-)deeply involved staff, differentiated.
The latter, probably requiring training upfront, but towards actual technology deployment, tuning (!) and use. And, moreover and probably much more important to get right, BCM style training. Train like you fight, then you’ll fight like you train. Since when it comes to damage control (and in infosec, the “it’s not if but when” is even harder fact than elsewhere!), one wants to have trained all on cool, controlled response not mere panicky reaction even more rigorously than in about any other direction.

Where does the Nudging part come into gaming ..? The thing, nudging rewards and penalties, is in use everywhere in public policy, to inobtrusively (sic; by governments yes, beware of the Jubjub Bird!) coerce people to change their social habits. At least a frog will jump out of slowly heating water… [Yes it does. But how did you want to jump out of the complete, total slavery of the Social Contract ..? You can’t. You’re bound from and by birth. You’ll be a slave forever, the more so when your mind is free…]
But besides; how do ‘we’ use nudges in infosec behaviour change games? How, in daily mundane practice where attention is to other things only, not to infosec as that stands in the way of efficient objectives realisation ..?

Third, how are the above two things combined, through ‘intermittent rewards’ as the most addictive element in games ..?

Just wanted to know. Thanks for your pointers to answers. [Have I ever received any? Nope.] And:

[On a bright day, for Stockholm, the Knäckeboat museum]

Top 5 things that Awa isn’t

When dealing with awareness, certainly in the infosec field (#ditchcyber!), there seems to be a lot of confusion over the mere simple construct under discussion. Like, the equasion (with an s not a t) of Awareness with Knowledge plus Attitute plus Behaviour. Which, according to the simplest of checks, would not hold. Since Knowledge, and maybe Attitude, are apt components. But Behaviour is what eludes the other two, by the unconscious that drives 95% of our behaviour, in particular when dealing with any but the most hard-core mathematical-logic types of decision making and interaction.

Which is why so many ‘Infosec awareness programs’ fail …
First of all, they’re Training, mostly, even when in the form of nice posters and QR cards [that’s Quick Reference, not QR-code you history-knowledgeless i.e. completely clueless simpleton-robot-pastiche one!], and it’s true that “If you call it Training, you’ve lost your audience’s want to learn” – your audience will figure out it’s Training despite you packaging it differently; they needn’t even explicitly but intuitively (the level you aimed for, or what?) they will.
Second, all the groupwise that you do, doesn’t reflect in-group dynamics at the actual workplace and work flows, nor does it reflect the actual challenges, nor the individuals changing moods (attitudes). Oh the latter: Your attempt at changing Attitude is geared towards A in relation to infosec but that’s only such a tiny, so easily overlooked and forgettable part of the A all-the-time in the workspace.
Third, and arguably foremost, to plug ‘arguably’ as a trick’let to appear more interesting, What you aim for is not blank flat knowledge, nor even attitude, but Behavioural change. Do you really use the methods to achieve that ..?

No you don’t.

Oh and of course I titled this post with something-something 5, to get more views. Geez, if you even fell for that… And:

[Your kindergarten Board wish they could ever obtain such a B-room; Haut Königsburg]

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what infosec behaviour I mean?

Am working on an extensive piece, a long-longread, on as many aspects of behavioural change towards true ‘secure’ user behaviour as I can cram into text. I.e., moving beyond mere full ‘awareness’ as phases 2/3 of this, to phase 4. Strange, by the way, that there is in that no end ‘phase’ or cycle in which one finds out to have been in phase 4 already for some time but didn’t notice and now forgets just as quickly as that seems ‘logical’.

But back to today’s subject, which is the same, but on a tangent. My question to you dear readers [why the plural, or >0 ..?] is:
Would you have pointers to (semi)scientific writing on the use of nudges to (almost)stealthily change (infosec-related) behaviour ..?
I could very much use that. Other sectors of human behaviour influencing studies have ample info on the effectiveness of such nudges, but for infosec I’m still with Googlewhack-like results.

Thanks in advance… Plus:

[The ways to seek prosperity from misery; EPIC Dublin]

1. Train like you BCM

Isn’t it strange that one of the most prominent success factors of Business Continuity Management, actually training for eventualities of all kinds and sizes, is so little done?
Or has the basic tenet Train like you fight, then you fight like you train been forgotten?

Or not even learned in the first place. Shameful.

And, by the way, it’s true. When you train (well, as serious as if you’d actually be in a ‘fight’ for survival), you get experienced. Surely no trained scenario will play out in the unlikely event of an emergency of any kind that your BCM aimed for, but you will be experienced to handle such unknown situations, be flexible, and have the acumen, courage, and wit to come up with a solution, no sweat, right ..? Because you know you can, no sweat, and hence, clear thinking about the right things.

So, … have fun shooting down the bogeys. And:

[Hey,, that’s a pic from a scanned slide (physical, Kodak), of the bitches of South, at Twente (no more)…]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord