My latest tech and business articles
Introducing Society 5.0
Self-help authors and politicians seem to agree on at least one thing: mindset matters. The shelves of bookstores worldwide are awash with motivational books by evangelical writers hoping to convert readers to their gospel of optimism. The central thesis is simple: success depends on approaching life, especially its challenges,...
Securing Society 5.0 – Overcoming the hidden threats in society’s greatest evolutionary leap
A term first coined by the Japanese government, “Society 5.0” describes "A human-centered society that balances economic advancement with the resolution of social problems by a system that highly integrates cyberspace and physical space." The fifth evolution of the society, enabled by the fifth generation of cellular networking and...
A Comparison of 5G Core Network Architectures
The 5G Core network is a Service Based Architecture. It evolves the traditional appliance based 4G Core Network to support services. It offers more agility and flexibility.
The major building blocks of this architecture include
Service-Based Interface: The Service Based Interfaces rely on HTTP/2
The 5G Network Functions: As explained...
The Open RAN Lexicon You Need
The telecoms and digital technologies sectors are notoriously jargonised. Eavesdrop on any conversation at an industry conference (remember those?) and you’d be treated to a parade of acronyms, initialisms and technical terms that would sound like ancient Greek to an outsider.
However, with new technologies being developed and deployed at...
Open RAN May Be the Future of 5G, but Can We Keep It Secure?
It's been a year of contradictions for the telecommunications industry.
Like most sectors, it has been heavily impacted by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a slowdown in global 5G roll-outs being a notable result. Geopolitical conflicts have continued to muddy the market, with governments playing a more active...
My latest leadership and DEI articles
Destructive Criticism – My experiences with negative feedback across cultures
Giving feedback is hard.
Giving good feedback is even harder.
Giving good feedback across cultures is next to impossible.
On my first Canadian project two decades ago, my Canadian boss "suggested that I think about" doing something in a different manner. So I did. I thought about it, and I decided not to.
Not...
We need to free organizations of bullshit – Part 1: Why?
While I add a similar disclaimer to all of my public content, it's particularly important in this case to emphasize that the convictions I've expressed in this article are entirely my own. I've arrived at these opinions after 30 years of corporate work, but they in no way reflect...
We need to free organizations of bullshit – Part 2: How?
Read Part 1: Why
Part 2: How
One day, sitting in the shed he called home, the journalist, Oobah Butler, had an idea: he would turn his shed into a fake restaurant and make it the top-rated eatery in London. This audacious thought wasn't random, though. Before becoming a feature writer...
Neurodiversity: Talent or Token?
How window-dressing chips away at any tangible rewards companies could reap from neurodiversity efforts.
Diversity has made a dent in the public consciousness. With a long-overdue shift from an ethical buzzword into a brand-defining must-have, emerging nuances to diversity have at last begun to take their place on the...
Those with Interpersonal Skills Have Least to Worry About the AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming ever more important, and not just in automating repetitive, manual labor jobs. Increasingly, it also enters the realm of highly trained knowledge workers. New. AI-driven world will require different skills.
Systems like IBM Watson augment the expertise of tax preparers, lawyers, doctors and many other...
5G Critical Infrastructure – the Most Critical of All
Not even 30 years separate us from the end of the Cold War. Yet, we appear to be witnessing the emergence of a new one, a technology Cold War between the United States and China. This time, instead of a ‘red under the bed’, the US government has declared there is one at the back door. It accuses Chinese technology companies of deliberately building vulnerabilities into their tech, allowing the Chinese to access and control the 5G critical infrastructure, and through it the connected devices and machinery at will.
Headlines are dominated by the case against Huawei, and debate continues to rage about the legitimacy of the US’s claims. Are these well-founded or part of a more comprehensive assault on China’s growing global technology dominance? Regardless, the battle lines are...
A Comparison of 5G Core Network Architectures
The 5G Core network is a Service Based Architecture. It evolves the traditional appliance based...
If You Thought 5G Was About Mobile Phones, You Were Wrong
Everybody has been confused about the furore over 5G recently. The confusion, of course, being...
Cyber-Kinetic Risk – Unintended Consequence of IoT in a 5G World
Getting smart about security in smart systems
Smart used to be something we called people or...
Cybersecurity and Safety in the 5G-Enabled Smart-Everything World
Neil Harbisson calls himself a cyborg. Without the antenna implanted in his skull, he would...
5G Innovation Zones in Canada for Launching AI and 5G in Tandem
In my previous post I argued that if Canada wants to succeed with its AI-focused...
Zigbee Security 101 (Non-5G IoT Connectivity Options)
Zigbee technology introduction
Zigbee is wireless PAN (Personal Area Network) technology developed to support automation, machine-to-machine...
The Future of Leadership in the Age of AI – Preface
Today’s business leadership face a conundrum. Artificial Intelligence (AI) unquestionably will play an enormous role in the future of their organizations and the business environment in which they operate, but what effects will it have? Prognosticators have wildly different visions of the future it will create, ranging from causing the extinction of humanity to ushering in a Golden Age in which machines provide all humanity’s needs and free us to focus on altruistic service to one another and the advancement of human culture.
Both of these most commonly heard predictions are based on assumptions that lead to wild speculation that piques the interest of media. Dramatic visions of the future draw eyeballs to websites and sell magazines and newspapers.
What little analysis we have seen on the issue that doesn’t rush...
Leadership in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI’s effect on the workplace will not be limited merely to repetitive, production line-type jobs....
AI Uses Today – Far More Than You Might Think
Ask people on the street how much AI uses today affect their lives, and most...
Risks of AI – Meeting the Ghost in the Machine
In 1956, at a workshop on the campus of Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire,...
AI: The Shifting Battlefield in the Cyber Arms Race
Cybersecurity strategies need to change in order to address the new issues that Machine Learning...
AI Is Neither the End of Civilization nor the Beginning of Nirvana
Where AI, robots, IoT and the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution are taking us, and how...
Those with Interpersonal Skills Have Least to Worry About the AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming ever more important, and not just in automating repetitive, manual...
Will 5G and Society 5.0 Mark a New Era in Human...
In their outstanding book, Wicked and Wise, Alan Watkins and Ken Wilber look at some of the most pressing ‘wicked problems’ facing the human race. ‘Wicked problems,’ they suggest, are difficult to define, but they are essentially unsolvable in the usual scientific sense.
The authors go on: wicked problems, such as climate change, are multi-dimensional, have multiple causes, multiple stakeholders, multiple symptoms and multiple solutions. They are by definition complex and difficult to process.
Crucially, they are created or exacerbated by people.
Our species has proved capable of producing challenges of unfathomable difficulty. We may, however, also prove capable of developing the novel thinking and technology required to overcome them.
Society 5.0 is the vision of such a future, in which humans and machines “co-create” the solutions to societal problems by integrating cyberspace...
Innovation in Canada – What’s Not Working and What Is
Canada’s rankings in innovation has lagged that of other peer nations for decades despite government...
5G Innovation Zones in Canada for Launching AI and 5G in Tandem
In my previous post I argued that if Canada wants to succeed with its AI-focused...
History of Cyber-Kinetic Incidents and Research
The fact that cyber-kinetic attacks rarely appear on mainstream news doesn’t mean they don’t happen....
Smart Home / Smart Building Connectivity Options and Their Cybersecurity
In a recent session on smart building cybersecurity, a student cheekily asked me "How did...
A Smarter Privacy – The Future of Privacy in our Smart Cities – 1
Part One: A Tale of Smart Cities
There has been a lot of talk about 5G...
The World of Cyber-Physical Systems & Rising Cyber-Kinetic Risks
We live in a world in which the way we observe and control it is...
The World of Cyber-Physical Systems & Rising Cyber-Kinetic Risks
We live in a world in which the way we observe and control it is radically changing. Increasingly, we interact with physical objects through the filter of what computational systems embedded in them tell us, and we adjust them based on what those systems relate.
We do this on our phones, in our cars, in our homes, in our factories and, increasingly, in our cities. Physical objects are so interconnected that we simply take those connections for granted, as if being able to unlock your car by pushing a button on your key fob, unlocking it with your phone or even by walking toward it is the way car locks always worked.
This interconnectedness offers us capabilities that exponentially exceed the expectations of science fiction writers and futurists of past generations....
The Quantum Computing Threat to Cybersecurity and 5G
Recently, in the science journal Nature, Google claimed ‘quantum supremacy’ saying that its quantum computer...
When Hackers Threaten your Life – Cyber-Kinetic Attacks Intro
The attacker stepped out from behind a hedge in the upper-class suburban neighborhood, being careful...
Navigating a Safe Course Through Maritime Cyberattacks
The open seas have long attracted those who yearned for adventure. The risk of pitting...
AI: The Shifting Battlefield in the Cyber Arms Race
Cybersecurity strategies need to change in order to address the new issues that Machine Learning...
Our Smart Future and the Threat of Cyber-Kinetic Attacks
A growing number of today’s entertainment options show protagonists battling cyber-attacks that target the systems...
Cyber-Kinetic Security and Privacy Threats in Smart Cities
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. The UN estimates that by...
Blockchain Security
Recent advances in Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) / Blockchain have significant implications for the global economy and financial services FinTech and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) solutions.
Blockchain is a set of technologies that through distributed computing and mathematics can now deliver Trust to an enterprise, consumer or financial institution remotely and without human intervention. Blockchain continues to improve at a torrid pace, driven first by Moore’s law and second by extraordinary advances in software and connectivity. As technology advances, the rapidly increasing number of use cases being developed on top of blockchain are illustrating the transformative potential of the technology to financial services, broader business, economy, and even society.
Blockchain application in the financial services industry has the potential to transform the way value is transferred, information is shared and business logic...
Emerging Tech Security Guidelines, Frameworks, Standards
Below is my attempt to list of all published 5G, IoT and "Smart Everything"-related security...
Cybersecurity of Blockchain & Blockchain for Cybersecurity
You may have heard, over the last year or two, about the new technological miracle...
How Hong Kong’s FinTech sector is developing
The global financial services sector is accelerating its transformation in response to changing values and...
Blockchain Security
Recent advances in Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) / Blockchain have significant implications for the global...
Technology Trends for 2019 – More Amazing Than Flying Cars
Technologies that could change the world have been a popular topic for the past half...
Diversity – The Benefits of Being Uncomfortable
The topic of diversity is not one that most people find in their comfort zone. As I wrote in a previous article on diversity, increasing diversity often engenders frustration in those tasked with accomplishing it, and inspires eye rolls among diversity-fatigued employees who have heard countless reports on management’s diversity goals, but remain unconvinced of diversity’s value.
Can anything be done to make diversity less of an uncomfortable topic?
The answer is no. Nothing about diversity will ever make it into the general business population’s comfort zone. I say that not out of cynicism, but out of practicality. At its root, diversity is uncomfortable. But, surprisingly, the discomfort it creates is what makes it so valuable.
Implicit biases, perceptions and reality
A 2016 Harvard Business Review article that brought together some of the most advanced research...
CH 1: Introduction – The Future of Leadership in the Age of AI
It’s almost impossible to turn around nowadays without finding another article predicting the impact that...
AI Is Neither the End of Civilization nor the Beginning of Nirvana
Where AI, robots, IoT and the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution are taking us, and how...
We need to free organizations of bullshit – Part 1: Why?
While I add a similar disclaimer to all of my public content, it's particularly important...
The Future of Leadership in the Age of AI – Preface
Today’s business leadership face a conundrum. Artificial Intelligence (AI) unquestionably will play an enormous role...
What is Interim Management?
When crisis strikes your business, what can you do? As you try to pick up...
Diversity – The Benefits of Being Uncomfortable
The topic of diversity is not one that most people find in their comfort zone....
AI-Exacerbated Disinformation and Cyber Threats to Democracy
Recent events have confirmed that the cyber realm can be used to disrupt democracies as surely as it can destabilize dictatorships. Weaponization of information and malicious dissemination through social media pushes citizens into polarized echo chambers and pull at the social fabric of a country. Present technologies enhanced by current and upcoming Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, could greatly exacerbate disinformation and other cyber threats to democracy.
Robert Kagan in his recent Post essay, “The strongmen strike back,” insightfully states:
What we used to regard as the inevitable progress toward democracy, driven by economics and science, is being turned on its head. In non-liberal societies, economics and science are leading toward the perfection of dictatorship.
Kagan refers to state surveillance and social media control and manipulation as technological mechanisms of social control....
Human Zombification as an Information Security Threat
Human Zombification as an Information Security Threat – Differences in Information Security Concepts Between Euro-Atlantic...
5G Health Risks – Health, Wealth and Tin Foil Hats
The rollout of 5G is one of the most anticipated events in humanity’s technological history....
AI-Exacerbated Disinformation and Cyber Threats to Democracy
Recent events have confirmed that the cyber realm can be used to disrupt democracies as...
Social Engineering – Greatest Information Security Risk
Social engineering doesn't have to be just a supporting process to obtain system access; it...
Why Financial Crime and Cybersecurity Need to Team up
The worlds of financial crime and cybercrime are colliding, converging into one. The biggest threat to businesses globally is the new cyber-enabled financial crime. Yet businesses and even financial institutions tasked with protecting our money continue to fight this combined threat with multiple separate defense systems and multiple separate defense teams.
The situation is like a military leader trying to fight different enemies on different fronts. While those enemies remain in different fronts, it makes sense to send separate defense forces against them, each focused on fighting only the enemy assigned to it. But what if those enemies merge and launch joint attacks? A smart military leader would merge his forces against the joint attacks.
That’s not happening in financial institutions, though. Rather than having financial crime and cybercrime teams work...
Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing processes
Money laundering and terrorism funding both have devastating effects. While acts of terrorism are more...
Understanding Know Your Customer & Customer Due Diligence
Anti–Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorist Funding (CTF) efforts involve the little-known world of Know...
Societal Costs of Money Laundering
Money laundering is a crime that many people consider irrelevant to them. If a problem...
Why Financial Crime and Cybersecurity Need to Team up
The worlds of financial crime and cybercrime are colliding, converging into one. The biggest threat...
Financial Institutions: Key in Fighting Weapons of Mass Destruction
How would you picture those who work to prevent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from...
Fighting Money Laundering at the Layering Stage
One key to fighting money laundering is understanding its process and the vulnerabilities in each...
Innovation in Canada – What’s Not Working and What Is
Canada’s rankings in innovation has lagged that of other peer nations for decades despite government efforts to address this issue. Considering its success in developing research programs at its universities, its mediocre rankings overall in technology development is disappointing. Those programs alone have not been enough to translate into entrepreneurial innovation.
A 2017 C.D. Howe Institute study points out that, even though Canadians have been at the forefront of breakthroughs in emerging technologies, in many cases, the chief beneficiaries of those breakthroughs have been other nations’ economies. Canada needs to take a stronger role in building an environment in which Canadian know-how spurs Canadian business growth.
Causes for concern
According to a 2017 PwC global survey, Canadian companies stand significantly ahead of their global counterparts in having a dedicated team for digital...
Collaboration: The Unexpected Key to Success in Canada’s 5G
In 1967, Lynn Margulis, a young biologist, published a paper that challenged more than a...
Innovation in Canada – What’s Not Working and What Is
Canada’s rankings in innovation has lagged that of other peer nations for decades despite government...
5G and AI – Getting Smart About 5G and AI in Canada
Canada has been investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for longer than most...
5G Innovation Zones in Canada for Launching AI and 5G in Tandem
In my previous post I argued that if Canada wants to succeed with its AI-focused...
Canadian Critical Infrastructure Cyber Protection
Targeted cyberattacks against critical infrastructure (CI) are increasing on a global scale. Critical systems are...
Importance of Privacy for Smart Cities and IoT
From The Jetsons to Blade Runner, to Back to the Future, to A.I. to The 5th Element, popular culture has long been fascinated by what the future would look like for ordinary people. In these films and countless others, humans of the future are shown engaging with technology that speaks to them, cooks for them, asks them how their day was and connects them with the outside world in a seamless and intuitive way. These are all examples of what we now regard as smart homes and smart cities – living spaces optimized by devices connected through the Internet of Things (IoT), intelligently responding to our needs.
These homes are a natural extension of the smart capabilities that most of us are already carrying around with us in our wearables...
5G Network Slicing Technology: A Primer
Hyped as the technology that will transform the world, 5G is moving past the buzzword...
Cybersecurity and Safety in the 5G-Enabled Smart-Everything World
Neil Harbisson calls himself a cyborg. Without the antenna implanted in his skull, he would...
Getting Street Smart – The Inherent Privacy Risks of Smart Cities
Humans are moving to cities at an unprecedented rate. Today 55% of the world’s population...
Emerging Tech Security Guidelines, Frameworks, Standards
Below is my attempt to list of all published 5G, IoT and "Smart Everything"-related security...
Whispering Buildings and Things That Listen to Us in the Night
How important privacy is for building smart cities and embracing the IoT
In the 60s cartoon...
Smart Home / Smart Building Connectivity Options and Their Cybersecurity
In a recent session on smart building cybersecurity, a student cheekily asked me "How did...
Cybersecurity and Safety in the 5G-Enabled Smart-Everything World
Neil Harbisson calls himself a cyborg. Without the antenna implanted in his skull, he would not be able to see colour of any kind. Born with achromatopsia, a condition of total colourblindness that affects 1 in every 30 000 people, Harbisson's physical faculties are augmented by cyber technology to grant him access to a life of greater meaning and satisfaction.
As technological evolution leads to concomitant advances in medical science, we are seeing more and more examples of humans who are integrating devices and sensors into their biological makeup. For some, like those part of the growing "transhumanist" movement, this is a means of artistic expression or exploration of human potential. For others, it is a solution to a medical problem. Either way, it represents the most vivid and personal...
Tangible Threat of Cyber-Kinetic Attacks
Connecting physical objects and processes to the cyber world offers us capabilities that exponentially exceed...
5G Making It More Important for Governments to Lead IoT Security
The human brain is programmed to keep us safe and secure. Yes, we are separated...
Risks of AI – Meeting the Ghost in the Machine
In 1956, at a workshop on the campus of Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire,...
Smart Home / Smart Building Connectivity Options and Their Cybersecurity
In a recent session on smart building cybersecurity, a student cheekily asked me "How did...
5G Security & Privacy Challenges
Don’t let the “5G” in the title confuse you. This post is not only about...
When Hackers Threaten your Life – Cyber-Kinetic Risks
The attacker stepped out from behind a hedge in the upper-class suburban neighborhood, being careful...
Will Telcos Lose the Edge Computing Battle as Well?
For many end-users of today's communications technology, the cloud is a somewhat mystical concept, a digital equivalent of aether. Most think of it as a formless abstraction "up there" when, in fact, the cloud is rooted in the ground. Or the seabed.
Despite rapid advances in satellite connection, almost all intercontinental data transfer that takes place every second of the day occurs via hundreds of thousands of miles of underwater cables. Reading a map of these submarine cables is like viewing a tapestry of international telecommunication.
It is perhaps strange to think that the email you just sent to your colleague in Africa traveled below the Atlantic Ocean. It's an oddly analogue image in an online world. Yet, the digital capability that those cables unleash is increasingly the stuff of science...
5G Policy and Regulatory Checklist
Ultra high speed, high quality 5G networks are expected to provide the connectivity required for...
Collaboration: The Unexpected Key to Success in Canada’s 5G
In 1967, Lynn Margulis, a young biologist, published a paper that challenged more than a...
The Open RAN Lexicon You Need
The telecoms and digital technologies sectors are notoriously jargonised. Eavesdrop on any conversation at an...
Introduction to 5G Core Service-Based Architecture (SBA) Components
The interest in 5G and mIoT is exploding. It's exciting to see so many IT...
How Telecom Operators Can Strike Back with IoT, Fog & Cyber
Telecom operators sat back as the new over-the-top (OTT) service providers, internet and tech companies...
Telcos Should Take Risks to Jumpstart the 5G Ecosystem
5G connectivity burst onto the world stage at last year’s Winter Olympics in Seoul, South...