The Barry Gibb effect (“It oughta be illegal!”)
This is just a short post to introduce a new term into the internet privacy world: the Barry Gibb effect. It relates to the ECJ Google vs Spain judgement (erroneously a.k.a. “The Right To Be Forgotten”...
View ArticleDon’t tell me it’s safe!
Guest post by Oliver Florence (final year undergraduate student) David Cameron has said that a change to legislation concerning encryption is required. They would like a means of accessing the content...
View ArticleThe ISC report on “Security and Privacy”: loose thoughts
A lot of activity this week around the ISC report on “Security and Privacy” a.k.a. the first time UK politics takes Snowden seriously (with the exception of some actions of the Home Affairs Committee)....
View ArticleGoogle owns the platform – twice over
As I’m trying to be a responsible cyber security academic, many app updates on my Android phone provide me with a dilemma. When Google Play offers an app update, it doesn’t normally tell me whether it...
View ArticleMr Cameron has lost his keys
It’s almost a year now since David Cameron started his attack on encryption: on 25 November 2014 he said (in the debate following the ISC Lee Rigby report: [Hansard, column 764] The question we must...
View ArticleSustainable data services
Today’s spin development on the Investigatory Powers bill was in the Telegraph, stating that end-to-end encryption would be banned after all. One line from an anonymous Home Office spokesman struck me:...
View ArticleBridge in the ancient internet
(This was originally a facebook note from 2011.) It was wonderful to see the famous psychologist Martin Seligman on TV (Newsnight) today. The name sounded familiar from a very different context … In...
View ArticlePanama papers: how much of an insider job?
Last week I was asked by Wired UK to comment on the Panama Papers. Specifically, given how out of date security measures on the Mossack Fonseca (MosFon) website looked, how might the data have escaped?...
View ArticleNot transparent, certainly not accountable: Google and the Right To Be Forgotten
I attended an event on the Right to be Forgotten (RtbF) at City University yesterday, organised to launch journalism prof George Brock‘s book on the topic. For those of you who don’t know, RtbF refers...
View ArticleWe got 1.6 million students’ Google search histories!
We have fantastic news. Google have given us 1.6 million UK university students’ five years’ Google search histories, so we can work on improving their learning. Knowing what students have looked for...
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