My Vancouver Island circumnavigation flight was featured in the Victoria Flying Club 2021 August newsletter https://issuu.com/vfcthepatrician
Privacy & Security Conference, Day 1
The 2021 Privacy and Security conference in Victoria was very different from previous editions. Still, there was excellent content at this virtual conference. And Drew McArthur was a great MC as always.
Yesterday’s second keynote had the following slide — notice the top Chief Information Security Officer’s worries in red:

from Session 2B “Real-Time Defender Velocity …” by David Gold [2021-02-04]
Cybersecurity and the future
Wall street visionaries provide chilling views on next big risk
“If I lie awake thinking about bad things that can happen, my concerns … are almost all about cybersecurity.” ~ R. Martin Chavez
Chilling yes, but it looks like any cybersecurity training you do or certification you obtain will serve you well.
Out of adversity comes opportunity?
Lock picking during lockdown
Have you kept up your lock pick skills since my 2019-05-15 workshop?
Lockdown is the perfect time to practice — with your own locks of course …be kind😇
For inspiration, I recommend
youtube.com/c/lockpickinglawyer/videos
Super-quick tubeless fix + true!
Tubeless rear tire leaking 20psi/night & wheel out of true. Kudos to Halldór & Bill at Trek Bikes in Victoria. Had me back on road in 6 min for $6!
My slides from last week
My slides from PNIAF in Seattle last week are now posted. Slide 26 has the best takeaway and slide 21 the best (auditor) humour.
It isn’t a failure. It’s data
“[Everything’s] a pilot. If it doesn’t work, it isn’t a failure. It’s data.”
Dorie Clarke on reinventing yourself. But it’s good advice for life generally.
PNIAF in Seattle, March 17
I’ll be presenting at the Pacific Northwest Intergovernmental Audit Forum (PNIAF) on March 17. I just need to spice up my provisional title a little. “Mobile Device Auditing” sounds boring 🙂
Kiran Ahluwalia @ UVic
Rez Abbasi (guitar), Nitin Mitta (tabla and vocals) and Louis Simão (accordian) accompanied Kiran Ahluwalia last night. They delivered a fantastic evening’s entertainment. World-class performers. Better than the Oscars 🙂
Kiran took time to talk to us when autographing CDs later. What a warm, genuine, person. There was truly no haste, on her part, in spite of the miserable (by Victoria standards) weather. Also, I don’t recall getting a hug from a musician after a show before … other than from family members!
Thank you Kiran, Rez, Nitin and Louis. Enjoy Nanaimo tomorrow!
What are police cameras for?
From the Washington Post story Hackers Hit D.C. Police Closed-Circuit Camera Network
“ransomware left police cameras unable to record [from Jan 12 to 15]”
and
“the safety of the public or protectees was never jeopardized”
So to be clear: Cameras — at least the ones in the article — are not for the safety of the public.
Cameras can serve other purposes. For starters, cameras can: (1) Aid post-incident investigation, and (2) help provide transparency. But I think we should be careful about always assuming they are for public safety. The distinction is especially important when we are having public debates about cameras and society “sleep-walking into a surveillance society”.