Dave Pinwell

Dave Pinwell

Dave Pinwell is a prolific blogger and IT enthusiast and has kindly allowed us to reproduce his popular weekly IT Talk column first published in the Solihull News. Dave is also CEO of Colebridge Trust and SUSTAiN which play a key role in providing strategic support to Solihull’s Voluntary & Community sector. Dave has extensive experience in the IT sector, with roles including IT Director with Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Ltd.
news, Tech News 17th November 2017 1399

Be Careful With New Technology

Last week’s IT news seemed to be dominated by the unintended consequences of having advanced technology.

First up was Matthew Channon, lecturer at Exeter University and Specialist in how the law applies to autonomous vehicles.

He submitted evidence to Parliament that hackers could readily obtain remote access to the controls of driverless cars and, as a result, cause pile-ups on motorways or even crash them into crowds.

Then a security firm called Appthority warned that a significant number of Apps in the Google Play and Apple App stores, because of the way developers have written them, have a vulnerability to the Eavesdropper Bug. This allows hackers to monitor things like text messages and phone calls.

An Amazon Alexa installation in Germany certainly made its presence felt. Its owner came home to his flat and found the locks had been changed. He popped around to his local police station to report this, only to be told ‘yes, we did it, here are your new keys.’

Alexa, he was advised, had burst into life at two in the morning and started blaring very loud music!

Cue red faces when an app called Lovense (I will avoid describing what it does in a family newspaper) was found to be recording intimate bedroom moments on the phone it was used on.

Add in the continued concerns that the US and French presidential elections and the UK EU referendum were interfered with by hostile agents on social media, and there is a clear warning to us all.

There is a case for tighter regulations nationally and a need for us all not to take new apps and kit at face value.

Dave Pinwell

Dave Pinwell is a prolific blogger and IT enthusiast and has kindly allowed us to reproduce his popular weekly IT Talk column first published in the Solihull News. Dave is also CEO of Colebridge Trust and SUSTAiN which play a key role in providing strategic support to Solihull’s Voluntary & Community sector. Dave has extensive experience in the IT sector, with roles including IT Director with Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Ltd.

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