“Hello, I don’t know if you’re the right person at IT Week to speak to, Phil, but I was just wondering if you were going to Infose...”

Arrrrrrrgh. I have to fight the almost irresistible urge to slam the phone down, before I hear those words I've come come to hate most in the world. 

That scenario has played itself out with monotonous regularity for weeks now. As self-appointed security tsar at IT Week, I and I alone have to endure the three-day test of willpower and physical stamina that is Infosecurity Europe. Well, that’s not quite true, actually: this year a couple of my colleagues have also been testing their resilience.

Much like Christmas, the pre-Infosec build-up seems to start earlier every year, so by late March I’m already screening my calls and arriving each morn to be greeted by a full mailbox of messages. I don’t think I’d be complaining so much if Infosec was held in Barcelona - or Berlin’s quite nice this time of year, or maybe Paris, or Athens - actually anywhere but a damp, grey three days in Kensington.

At this year’s event I had been primed to follow up on our story from a couple of weeks ago about the absorption of the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) into Soca, the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The full impact of this move remains to be seen, with claim and counter-claim but little in the way yet of empirical evidence about how Soca will carry on the fight against e-crime. 

As news editor Madeline Bennett reported, several experts have warned that the move could result in fewer cases of e-crime being reported to the police, especially as the widely praised Confidentiality Charter has now been scrapped. But at Infosec, several of the panelists in a first-day keynote seemed fairly content that their firms' relationship with the so-called British FBI would not change much from their previous interactions with the NHTCU. 

Hmmm, perhaps, but I'd be interested to learn their opinion a few days after their next major IT security incident, then see what they think. It's also true that the Confidentiality Charter was in place for such a relatively short period of time that relatively few firms got the chance to make use of it, and so don’t realise what they are now missing. That said, there’s also a very good case for data breach notification laws in this country, similar to the lot they have in the States, which would make all this a moot point. But I’m also very sceptical about whether firms are really going to get the best help possible, now that they must report any e-crime incidents to their local police force.

April 28, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

My name is Philip Muncaster and I'm an IT journalist. There, I've said it... what a weight off.

Well, now my secret's out, for the record I'd like to state that I'm not a geek, a nerd, a tech-head, techie, technofile, technofreak or any other variation on that theme. What I hope to bring to this blog in the coming weeks and months, or until the budget runs out – and I am acutely aware that there are probably about 35.9 million blogs too many in the world already – is, well, I'm not sure really. Let's just say I'll endeavour to keep it free from the misinformed, pompous rantings you’re more than likely to find in many these days (editor Lem Bingley's blog apart, of course).

And feel free to share your thoughts on any of the hard-hitting news or random nonsense I post up here in the coming weeks.

April 28, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)