TED Community » James Lyne

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I'm passionate about

The security of the internet, the potential for technology to evolve our lives and the prosperity of human thought. Exploring, seeing the world, learning and enjoying brilliant people and topics.

An idea worth spreading

The internet is probably the most significant asset that we have in our personal lives, the education of the next generation and our businesses. Over it's organic development it has accomplished amazing things and fundamentally redefined how we communicate and innovate. We now take for granted that we can sit on our sofa and with a thin tablet device access the vast majority of mankind's collective knowledge and ideas (whilst complaining it takes four seconds, how unreasonable!). Cyber criminals, state control, the conflict of privacy and security are all themes that we must now move to the conscious agenda for discussion. However, most cyber crime and human harming attacks occur due to basic failures that could have been prevented with a little bit of education. We should spread knowledge of security best practice and demand that quality IT skills take their place alongside Maths, Science and languages in national curriculums the world over. It's our internet, let's keep it clean.

Talk to me about

Cyber security, malware, hacking, IT, social media, physics, quantum physics, encryption, history, photography, running, exploring, inventing, business, innovation, science, bad hair, books, politics.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Nov 10 2011: Do you not think it is deeply linked to the greater difficulty (for many in these establishments) to objectively assess progress and capability in visual areas? Equally, perhaps it is the stereotype of value of certain skills within business?

• A comment on Conversation: Is it possible to create a new color? One that does not already exist?

  Nov 9 2011: Can you even verify that we perceive colours the same today? We have a vaguely shared experience, but do we 'see' the same thing?

• A comment on Conversation: What is the first thing you tell yourself when you wake up to give yourself energy or courage?

  Nov 9 2011: In my small spec of time amidst the massive universe, what am I going to do? Then a cold shower.

• A comment on Conversation: Is email is dead - this year social media became more popular than email. Is there a future for email?

  Nov 9 2011: How we communicate, both in language and the platforms we use to host exchange of ideas are constantly in flux. We are always trying new conventions and based on collective determination of efficiency we evolve modern conventions. One only needs to look at the evolution of language (by the way Stephen Pinker has some most enjoyable books on these topics) to see how this can apply to this question too. I have absolutely noted that different age groups or functions within businesses and communities I work in are adapting and changing their communication styles and mediums - blackberry messenger was incredibly popular with teenagers alongside the presumed ubiquitous Facebook. Social media communication doctrines have also started integration with more conventional/traditional platforms like e-mail clients or even purpose built business tools like CRM. Both consumers and businesses are casually adopting these mechanisms.
  
  Right now, both platforms are useful and oct people make use of both of them for different scenarios (I still write letters too!) but personally I feel e-mail, social media and IM are on a path to collide much more. Various technology advances also make voice and video interesting players here again.
  
  It's personal and the bell curve usual wins ;-)
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: iCloud and Cloud disks, our personal data on the web, benefits and consequences ?

  Nov 9 2011: Encrypt your files and folders with a key for your device/user. Place in commodity cloud storage. Kind of like putting a letter in a safe and handing it to a van driver. If the van driver loses the safe the data is not accessible. This doesn't work for more complex structured data scenarios, but for your cloud storage examples it provides security. Just make sure you also consider resilience and your ability to get your data back if it is a single point of failure...

• A comment on Conversation: iCloud and Cloud disks, our personal data on the web, benefits and consequences ?

  Nov 9 2011: The issue of the cloud (the marketing term that encompasses a mass of different technical and commercial models) to large degree simply draws attention to an issue that already existed. As consumers we've all been using the internet and sharing data for a good long while. Enterprises have been degrading their perimeters and sharing information, or using 3rd parties for a long time but the issue has not been as explicitly recognised as it is now. Broadly, data being more accessible helps to create greater value through it's application or adaption but this is in direct conflict with the privacy and security issues of greater openness. There are a myriad of different use cases in here ranging from the movement of private data to storage providers to complex mashups of multiple third parties accessing and transforming your data - in this model even identifying whom is responsible for your data and it's security becomes immensely challenging. This dynamism of data movement is also directly in conflict with many of the preconceptions of and existing legal frameworks to protect consumers.
  
  The key point is that the cloud is a question of if, not a question of when. Different use cases will migrate and evolve at different times - some already have and moved a long time ago, others will take time to mature or require more ubiquitous connectivity. We have to shift our thinking to a model of perimeter or geographic location based security to one that considers the data to be the perimeter, we need a technology and process model that enables us to pragmatically protect data wherever it flows. This includes lots of new device types like the iPad as well as cloud storage solutions. I am a significant user of cloud services, but I validate they are contractually and legally obliged to behave responsibly AND I assume they will screw it up, encrypting my data so that if they lose it it can't be accessed. The issue is more complex, but a start for 10.