lectures

Social Engineering of the Day

This afternoon I was sent out to a distant corner of Oxford University, to which I’d never been before, in order to deliver a lecture on information and computer security. I just wanted to share the exchange that happened when I arrived, because it’s so delightfully ironic:

Dan walks into the building and, seeing the security gates, walks up to the reception desk. Papers left loose on the reception desk indicate that a lecture on security is happening today.

Dan: [pointing at his name on the papers] That’s me. I’m here to deliver the presentation on security. Where should I go?

Receptionist: I’ll buzz you through the gate – go down the stairs, and to the end of the corridor. There’ll be swipe-locked doors you can’t get through, but just hang around for a minute or so and you’ll be able to follow somebody else through.

That’s right – I turned up at a building in order to teach the people there about security, and – without identifying myself any more than pointing at a piece of paper and saying “that’s me” – was given a temporary ID card and encouraged to piggyback my way through their checkpoints. I guess they needed me more than they thought!

Cool Thing Of The Day

Cool And Interesting Thing Of The Day To Do At The University Of Wales, Aberystwyth, #32:

Go on a tour of the lesser-spotted pubs. End up in a club. Finish drinking at 1am. Still have a hangover twelve hours later. Still have a headache twenty hours later. Realise to your horror that there are a lot of ‘black spots’ in your mind about that night. Realise with even more shock, the following afternoon, that, with alcohol still streaming round your viens, a lecture with John Basterfield is actually interesting. Wonder if this is normal.

The ‘cool and interesting things’ were originally published to a location at which my “friends back home” could read them, during the first few months of my time at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, which I started in September 1999. It proved to be particularly popular, and so now it is immortalised through the medium of my weblog.

Cool Thing Of The Day

Cool And Interesting Thing Of The Day To Do At The University Of Wales, Aberystwyth, #24:

Take a pillow to a lecture. =o)

The ‘cool and interesting things’ were originally published to a location at which my “friends back home” could read them, during the first few months of my time at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, which I started in September 1999. It proved to be particularly popular, and so now it is immortalised through the medium of my weblog.

Cool Thing Of The Day

Cool And Interesting Thing Of The Day To Do At The University Of Wales, Aberystwyth, #17:

Attend a lecture in a shirt and tie, and carrying a bag full of clothes, and leave 20 minutes before the end, to catch a coach to Aberdyfi, and sit on it and sing! (actually, this hasn’t happened yet – but this afternoon, it will!)

The ‘cool and interesting things’ were originally published to a location at which my “friends back home” could read them, during the first few months of my time at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, which I started in September 1999. It proved to be particularly popular, and so now it is immortalised through the medium of my weblog.