Jon Geater talks about the importance of trust and security in the connected world.
In the world of cycling you’ll often hear "it's not about the bike" – busting the illusory bubble that an average person can become an elite cyclist simply by buying lots of fancy technology.
And (perhaps sadly) it's true: a decent machine is necessary but all sorts of other things – diet, training, attitude – play a crucial part. And for all one’s own efforts much depends on the roads you’re riding on or the weather conditions – things over which you have little or no control.
So it is with security in the connected world. We hear much about device security these days – because of the popularity of smart watches, the fabled "IoT toaster", or the myriad ways we have to pay for coffee these days. When a popular pone handset or laptop OS gets hacked the media has been trained to tell everyone to patch now (or else to panic). It's a nice story because it’s an easy story: simply fix all the devices, and everything will be safe, right?
Sadly wrong. Trust and security in the connected world are complex and are concerned with your personal data and your life, not the devices that your digital life happens to flow through.
When it comes to security trustworthy devices are necessary, but not sufficient. It’s the combination that counts.