2000 words, 7 1/2 minutes. Attack Surface Reduction “Out of every hundred men, ten shouldn’t be there, eighty are just targets” Heraclitus 535 - 475 BC. My posts on Winning Systems for Cyber Security Practitioners are my most popular. In them, I attempt to change your perspective on the relative importance of products and skills in securing what’s precious to you. I make the case for using systems (in the broadest sense of the word) not goals ..read more

1750 words, 7 minutes. “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the world." - Sir Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality. 1919. Do you work in technology, are you building a company? You should think about how your product or service fits with the wider world because aligning with large movements is a winning system. Amongst my tweets on Cyber Security, Product Management, and company building, I occasionally mention International Relations or Geopolitics ..read more

1330 words, 5 minutes. Do you like hyper-masculine, gladiatorial confrontations where losers suffer not just the ignominy of defeat but significant even permanent loss of status in a rigid hierarchical system? You do, do you? Well then you’ll like this. Or do you think that sounds detestable? If so you’ll want to defeat this barbarous idea before it takes hold. Keep reading. The World As It Is The number of security qualifications has exploded ..read more

1600 words, 8 minutes. You’ve suffered a breach. Your security was circumvented. Data was lost and the public, shareholders, media, and perhaps regulator must soon be informed. A chain of events has begun. What you do next will determine in large part where that chain leads. In this post I’m going to talk about a tactic I’ve seen used to successfully re-frame a bad situation and nudge the narrative in your favour ..read more

600 words, 3 minutes. In this bite-sized post I’m going to talk about the lag between initial adoption of transformative technology and the increase in productivity it’s supposed to bring. I’m going to talk about the disappointment felt when such technology meets established, dogmatic structures in business (or government), and what executives can do about it. Not all new technologies have the potential to transform business but those that do demand special care, because they are a pill that you swallow not a topical cream ..read more

1500 words, 7 minutes. This post is written from the perspective of a VC screening for success factors. In it, I drill deeper into successful operational characteristics. If you’re an entrepreneur or founder, you should give consideration to adopting some of the systems I talk about here. I’ll even suggest prioritising them over features and fixes to your product because getting imperfect product adopted by many is a better predictor of success than putting perfection in the hands of a few ..read more

1300-1600 words, 6 1/2 to 8 1/2 minutes. “He grasped two pillars of the temple and bowed himself with all his might” - Judges 16:30. Introduction This post is about online services which rely partly, or wholly, on user-contributed content. It’s about what happens to that content if those services close. I’ll examine the constraints and motivations of the parties involved. I’ll then present a solution to the problem of what I call content custodianship ..read more

1300 words, 4 and a half minutes. This will probably be the first and last time I write about social networking. I’m an antisocial social networker. I had an expectation that part of the job of a networking platform (professional or social) would be to filter content or updates, both in terms of who was posting them and the individual significance or quality of the posts. Boy was I wrong. One person re-posts every single article they see, another “motivational” poster repeats blithe optimism without context at the end of every day (tellingly never the beginning ..read more

550 words, 2 minutes. Final Remarks “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved” - Sun Tzu. This is the 6th and final post in a short series on winning systems for security practitioners. The first postfeels like a while ago already, about 6000 words or 25 minutes. Those minutes haven’t been wasted. The Inevitable Car Analogy If you’ve come this far then you’ve already completed one whole lap around the circuit of winning systems ..read more

1450 words, 5 1/2 minutes. Resilience “In defeat: Defiance” - Winston S. Churchill. This is part 5 of 6 in a short series of posts on winning systems for Information Security practitioners. It aims to plug the gap between policy and products and put you, the practitioner, back in the driving seat. After all if you don’t know what system you’re implementing, how can you decide what products or features are important to you ..read more