Tag: people

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]

Drones with AI; revenge

Heard recently of an airforce that was setting up a drone squadron where the pilots (? might, given the joysticks, better be called ‘gamers’ these days, apart from the euphemistically erasure of the moral and ethical aspects, maybe) would be in that country but the drones would be stationed in some other country because stupid drone flying rules go for the DoD too.
Yes this regarded a European country [would’ve referred to NL outright if it was; ed.], you guessed that correctly from the previous.

At some point in the future, the drones inevitably will get AI because everything will get AI. And, in times of increasing hacking and comms disruptions, some autonomy would be welcome for the drones already. And, what with increasing (sic) hackability, qua security against take-overs / reprogramming / retargeting while already airborne?
By that AI time, smart enough AI to come back and take revenge for the exile on those that wrote / maintained the stupid rules ..?

Anything too outlandish to take into serious regard today, will be daily no longer newsworthy fact tomorrow. ‘Tomorrow’ may vary from tomorrow to five years; no more.

Oh and on a lighter note:[Oh hey look, a street car! Sevilla]

Weak Humans, the Top-10

Again, the reference in the title is useless but may attract more readers through Timeline/Prio Gaming(™ from now on) – and, this in return might have referred to the title but yet again, close but no cigar (again, less chances of a Cuban, anyway, for some by their own mistake).
What I meant was that humans are targeted by hackers since they’re so vulnerable read stupid may be true — relatively… actually meaning apparently Technology and [the empty shell phrase of; ed.] Process may be so perfected that hackers have nowhere else to turn to.

That, of course, is not true. Simply, false.

When looking at the disastrous error rates (bugs to be fixed, sometimes easily) in software, how would anyone be able to claim Technology is anywhere near kinda OK. And Process… Show me an office (however formal, or strikingly similar to a coffee shop of not the Amsterdam original kind, or any beach with WiFi [→ why aren’t we all there, yet …!? ed.]), and show me a ‘process’ there. Wrong. All you can show, is either concrete, chairs, etc. even if of the kanban billboard kind [how idiotically silly can one get ..?], or humans. I.e., Technology or People. Neither of which is Process. No, printer paper with some ink blots .. also not process (descriptions) but Tech..! Don’t believe the lies, people! Process doesn’t exist!
So, we have something half-crappy [surprise this blog editor still runs … ;-] and something non-existent, … and People. On what now would you want to build your security?

Ah, on the People that are the most flexible, attentive (to business objectives, not your overhead), and creative (well… but including the most meta<sup2 of abstract/meme evolution evah) that Nature has ever developed with her genetic algorithm play of Evolution.
Where did you leave your own mis- and totally-zero-understandings on Humans, to pursue Tech and “Process” (quod non) solutions to Human threats ..? Why weren’t human threats from the word Go protected against by the best that human defences could muster to protect human vulnerabilities ..? Not only qua passwords, with a method aligning with cardinal sin number …. [should re-read the Bible for that; ed.] being the quest for ever more money i.e. including the protection of what you have (see the link). But qua overall about-all controls you’d need. If done right, I bet a lot of tech controls would dwindle in significance (and possibly be executed much worse than today; zero gain).

Now I start to ramble. But you get the point, and you get:
[From here, the Strong came in. NY]

Discharging DPOs by auditors

Now that it by and large seems to be that GDPR hypestuff is mostly pushed into the legal corner, … let it stay there. Let the others do their job, and reap all the benefits. I.e., via the avenue (required budget-wise; wildlands qua budgets received) of data discovery [Uchg ugly word I meant inventory] / data minimalisation/cleansing / data security [the old way, like information security, not the #ditchcyber fail] towards magnificent efficiencies in IT ops, and much clearer, exponentially better profile’able data even if Big.

Hey, the DPO was so self-inflatedly Important, right? Let him (sic) handle all the fan mail then… Let him panick-crash during every high-pressure breach BCM handling.

And then a. get fired, b. get sued, c. get replaced by yet another legal scholar turned business savvy (quod non) ‘executive’ [who executes who?].

But … in the mean time, someone would have to discharge the DPO. Not from internal audit because they’re part of the problem organisation.

OK, let’s have that done by an external auditor, then. A specialist, hopefully.

Hereby my claim to that specialty. Will develop fully-compliant methodology, will travel (charging expense…).

And:

[As an external auditor specialist, I love to have this sort of view; NY]

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]

Car disruption

Have governments gone insane?? They penalise anyone (but certainly not everyone) going over some completely [?] arbitrary speed, whereas my car can do double that, easily. This needs to be disrupted! Just drive as fast as you can handle, don’t care about the ‘others’ that stand in the way of you in your fundamental rights to freedom and the pursuit of happiness, and fight government in courts when they go after you – they are the stupid ones! They can’t stand you disrupting the traffic market by being quicker than the stupid sheeple [or is that you disruptor-user ..?] from A to B! People will die in traffic (e.g., by being so stupid as to always stay on the pavement but wanting to cross the road at a pedestrian crossing; fools. Children will veer off onto the streets; too bad. There will always be some less lucky and they take themselves out of the gene pool, just let them not hinder the Winners.

I’m into privacy. Which is of course completely different? from traffic ‘markets’ where the road is a commons, bound by rules (like, one doesn’t have priority but should give it to others when due) to make it reasonably safe for anyone (as a commons: no over-use till Tragedy Of). Just like hotels having to live by all sorts of safety rules (training staff, smoke alarms, hygiene, etc.etc.) for a reason. The same reason (or worse, given casuality of visitors) that goes for the V-sign company?
So, privacy in public space, the more virtual the more so [at least, no bit less so], can one (ab)use it when in breach of laws of common decency – that go much beyond mere laws or constitutions ..?

Not even a personal thing, the above … and:

[Perfect space for street racing…? Wouldn’t even hit too many ‘innocents’ here…; Zuid-As Ams]

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)…]

Stay put while moving your address

Lately, there were a number of times I was reminded that for those that still use email (i.e., the overly vast majority of us!), some email addresses have been more stable over time than mere snail street addresses. And, with the different use of email versus the type that it was (derived-)named after, quite some times your ‘stable’ email address is harder to change. Where moving physical home address will easily redirect your mailman’s delivery for a large sway of services (utilities, subscriptions, et al.), such service doesn’t necessarily exist for email.
Not strange. You can move house and then take your email with you. Come to think of it, this is part of the greatness of the OSI model, right?
But strange. Try to ‘move’ (i.e., change) your private email address, that you use for innumerable websites, affiliation subscriptions, socmed profiles, etc.etc., and … you’re hosed. In particular, when you don’t have access to your former email address e.g., when switching employers (wasn’t a good idea to begin with, even in about-all of the world where using company equipment still leaves you with all privacy protection you’d need, excepting the corner of the world that their figurehead took out of the world’s developments so will revert to backwater, developing country-terrain), the confirm-change email may be unreachable as you can’t login to your old mail account… No solution provided anywhere.

So, as easy as it should be to move physically and have your physical address changed in public record systems, as easy it should be to keep some email address(es) that are used to identify you in person even when you’ve moved ISP…
Question to you: Is this covered under the “Must be able to move” hardcore requirement always under the GDPR..? *All* data should be coughed up in a machine-readable format to be processed in similar manner by some other service provider. That goes for email services too, automatically, so how will the (your!) sender/receiver addresses still be valid when you’ve moved ..?
If the latter works, then any service provider ID in your email address must work on any other provider’s systems, or your former is liable for up to 2% of global (sic) turnover. Quite a (damages avoidance) budget, to make things work…

Oh, and:

[Take a seat; not your address of any kind; Dublin Castle]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord