Hello, Anil Dash wrote a lovely piece on installing apps on a Commodore 64 this week. I had a ZX Spectrum 128k, where installing anything meant twenty minutes of tape hiss, a prayer, and a volume knob set entirely by feel. It was still more reliable than most vendor update processes. https://anildash.com/2026/10/08/install-an-app-commodore-64/ Closing every branch … Continue reading Breach of Confidence: 26 October 2026 →

My mum's iPhone face ID stopped recognising her. Just didn't want to know her. We spent an hour resetting things, rebooting the phone, following all steps. In the end it turned out that the screen protector had moved a bit and smudged the front camera so it couldn't see her. Pushing it back into place … Continue reading Breach of Confidence: 19 October 2026 →

A day late but hopefully not a dollar short! Here's what happened last week that I caught and maybe you did too, or maybe you didn't. The CISO who forgot rule one A CISO spent half a million on security patches, then used "r3@lg00dp@$$w0rd" as his password. Actually the password itself wasn't the real issue, … Continue reading Breach of Confidence: 12 October 2026 →

I've been trying to explain to my kids why I won't let them use certain apps, and they've started calling me paranoid. Am I? ShinyHunters Takes Up a New Hobby The 24-year-old Dutch suspect allegedly behind ShinyHunters has been moonlighting in attempted murder-for-hire. Which is quite the career pivot from WAF bypasses and database dumps. … Continue reading Breach of Confidence — 05 October 2026 →

There was a mass uprising last week in support of moving this newsletter from Friday to Monday. Do not let anyone ever say I'm not a man of the people. Unfortunately, I forgot, so it's a bit later in the day than I had hoped for. Right. Let's see what broke last week. AI agents … Continue reading Breach of Confidence — 28 September 2026 →

I want a watch that understands I am middle-aged and have already done quite a lot today. I went upstairs. I carried something from one room to another. I stood up during an advert. Unlike Apple, which seems to think what I really want from a watch is for it to listen to my conversations … Continue reading I want a better watch →

I've discovered that the best way to avoid working is to write a newsletter about work. It's meta-procrastination. My therapist would be proud if I could afford one after this week's Claude bill. Grizzly Bears Understand Infrastructure Better Than Most CISOs Canada fenced a highway through grizzly country, built 44 crossings, and watched collisions drop … Continue reading Breach of Confidence — 11 September 2026 →

I've spent this week watching a scam artist successfully impersonate a friend on LinkedIn, complete with his job title and a slightly better headshot. It was reported four days ago. The account is still up. LinkedIn's verification process remains slower than their Premium upsell notifications. Anyway, here's what happened whilst I waited for customer support … Continue reading Breach of Confidence — 04 September 2026 →

I've started bringing a small notebook everywhere. Not because I'm particularly organised, but because I've realised the best analogies arrive whilst I'm doing something completely unrelated to security. This week it happened at a petrol station. More on that later. Slovakia's Traffic Camera Surprise Slovakia bought 279 Russian traffic cameras with SMS backdoors and passwordless … Continue reading Breach of Confidence — 28 August 2026 →

I was talking to some friends about how much more we travel now than we (our parents generation) did in the 1980s. I know there are a lot of factors that contribute towards the shift, but the main point we landed on was that budget airlines have overall enriched us, allowed us to become worldly … Continue reading Budget airlines, mobile phones, and AI →