Making Data Better podcast

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The focus of computer technology historically has been on the manipulation and communication of data and information. Yes, there’s always been the monstrously obvious admonition of “garbage in, garbage out” when speaking of data. But as our dependence on data grows, the issues of data quality, of making data better, have grown in importance and complexity. Data, it turns out, is endlessly nuanced. Government Data Generation and Usage Government has an enormous interest in data. It is an issuer of data when it assigns account numbers, for example, to its citizens to ease service delivery. It is also a considerable consumer of data in order to establish policy, measure program efficiency, support planning, and, just as with any business or individual, for decision making of all kinds. But this isn’t simple. The term “government” masks the fact that multiple agencies exist, each with its own goals, never mind data handling policies and procedures. Sharing data across industries is as nuanced as data sharing between enterprises or even more so. Understanding how governments think about the data they consume and generate is key to long term data security and online identity. Talking with Data Expert Ian Oppermann In this fascinating and stimulating conversation, Steve and George discuss these topics with Ian Oppermann , the former data director for the state of New South Wales, a director for Standards Australia, and advisor to multiple startups. Ian shares his insider’s knowledge of government agency priorities and the fact that sharing data across agencies is “extraordinarily hard.” Just at the Beginning Standards Really Really Matter Ian’s participation in ISO standards development comes from his insight that data sharing requires very crisp definitions, detailed use cases, and specific guidance for each use case based on privacy and data custodianship requirements. And he points out that we are just at the beginning. For example, the latest ISO standards tackle the basics of terminology definition and use cases, ISO 5207 , and guidance of data usage, ISO 5212 . These standards do address the use case of AI but even at this stage the standards address the basics. People Matter As with many technology management concerns these days, the concerns are rarely about the tech itself. They’re about people, too. Here’s Ian: “If you want to use [data] for important purposes, you actually need people who know and understand what data is, who know and understand what data governance is, and who know and understand how to actually use the data for appropriate purposes and then put guidance restrictions or prohibitions around the data products you create.” Ian concludes with: “But [for] the general use of data, we're only just beginning to understand the power, the complexity, the mercurial nature of data and starting to build frameworks around it.” Take a listen if you care about data management and governance in large organizations. We are just at the beginning of getting this right.…

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EP15: Money in the Metaverse with Dave Birch 39:15

1 year тому39:15

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Dave Birch is an authority and an ambassador for identity systems. And a great conversationalist. With co-author Victoria Richardson , he’s just published Money in the Metaverse: Digital assets, online identities, spatial computing and why virtual worlds mean real business . (US link here ). In this discussion with Steve and George, Dave introduces the book and takes us into their thinking about secure, private transactions in the metaverse. Or metaverses as he points out because it will be a multi-metaverse world. Dave doesn’t let the slow evolution of 3D hardware or its high price stand in the way of his enthusiasm. We’ve seen similar transitions before, ones that drive ubiquity and precipitous hardware cost declines so it's time to get out ahead of what's coming. Much of the conversation is relevant to today’s concerns, in advance of widespread metaverse adoption. So take a listen. A note on their book. Even if you are slightly skeptical (or more) about metaverse breadth or arrival date, Money in the Metaverse is a very worthwhile read as it discusses so many of the essential components and concerns that apply in today’s world. The challenges, and solutions, to identification and privacy are examined at depth. Victoria and Dave have used the bright light of use cases, stories, and tech from our current situation to explore identity infrastructure that works in the real world and, according to them, may work better in the metaverse.…

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EP14: Steve Wilson on NAB Digital Next Podcast 28:50

1 year тому28:50

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Lockstep's Steve Wilson just appeared on the NAB Digital Next podcast with host Alysia Abeyratne. NAB has kindly allowed Making Data Better to repost the podcast here. If you want to understand how to untangle the knots we’ve tied around identity and identification online, take a listen. Alysia asks important questions and Steve provides really crisp answers and explanations on: The evolution of digital identity Verifiable credentials Commentary on Australia’s Digital ID legislation.…

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EP13: The Future of the Cloud: Confidential Computing with Mike Bursell 32:38

1 year тому32:38

32:38

How do we protect data while it’s actually in use? And how can we prove it? Up until now, that’s been nearly impossible. We’ve addressed securing data in flight and at rest. When done right, they are strong protections. But what about when the data (and code is data, too) is actually in memory or being processed? And how much more complex does that become when everything is in the cloud? Confidential computing addresses this weak, and hitherto unsecured, concern. In this episode of Making Data Better Steve and George speak with Mike Bursell , executive director of the Confidential Computing Consortium and author of Trust in Computer Systems and the Cloud , a brilliant examination of trust in digital system. Confidential computing gives enterprises a way of securing their operation’s data and code in the face of rising threats and compliance demands. It provides attestation, the ability to prove in an auditable fashion how data has been handled, right down to the metal. Mike’s clear that this is the future of computing. We already know the future is in the cloud. Now it needs to be secured. He’s hardly alone in that view. Indeed, Microsoft already uses confidential computing to protect its multi-billion dollar payment processing transaction system. So take a listen. Confidential computing makes data better.…

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EP12: Our Quick Hit on How Hard Security Deployment Really Is 15:59

1 year тому15:59

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In this Making Data Better episode, Steve and George discuss the multiple challenges of making better security approaches available and, critically, used by relying parties and suppliers. This is a hugely non-trivial problem. Functional product features nearly always receive priority over basic security. IoT manufacturers compete on features and cost where even a single dollar’s worth of cryptographic hardware impacts competitiveness. With incentives as they are, taking steps to secure digital operations will continue to be viewed as a cost of doing business, a cost to be minimized if not avoided. The answers are multiple but a huge market shaper is regulation. Regulation shapes how competitors prosper, or not, by focusing incentives on safety. That’s worked for automobiles; it’s worked for aircraft. We believe the internet needs similar treatment (remember the phrase “Information Superhighway”?). Regulation can remove the cost avoidance temptation and establish the minimum capabilities for all parties. And, as we discuss, ubiquitous participation is essential. We are also bullish on the business model that could emerge around verifiable credential sharing. So take a listen!…

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EP11: The Internet Bends Toward Privacy: Michelle Finneran Dennedy, PrivacyCode 45:42

1 year тому45:42

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Privacy has been a major casualty of the Internet. Twenty five years ago Silicon Valley leading light, Sun’s CEO Scott McNealy said we “have zero privacy. Get over it.” And that has been the truth ever since and the profits basis for AdTech behemoths Google, Meta, and more. The good news is that, in the quarter century since advertising became the Internet’s business model, few have gotten over it, including powerful national and regional regulators. In this wide-ranging discussion with Steve and George, Michelle Finneran Dennedy , CEO of PrivacyCode, Inc. and Partner at strategy consulting firm Privatus.Online speaks to this shift toward restoring online privacy and what her company is doing to streamline implementation of privacy enhancing practices. In this Making Data Better episode, Michelle addresses: The immorality of Data Subject Access Requests Ethics vs. zero trust The impossibility of privacy regulation compliance AdTech’s shifting model The liability tornado about to strike data hoarding enterprises This is an important and exciting conversation. Take a listen.…

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EP10: The Key Role of the Data Provider - Cindy Printer, LexisNexis Risk Solutions 33:38

2 years тому33:38

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A key actor in risk assessment is the data provider. These commercial operations aggregate and analyze the data produced by governments, enterprises, individuals, and even other data providers. All to feed today’s insatiable appetite for understanding who it is we are dealing with online. In this Making Data Better episode, Steve and George are joined by Cindy Printer , Director, Financial Crime Compliance and Payments, at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. The company is a major data provider to government and enterprise; Cindy focuses her work on financial services firms and their need for regulatory compliance. We discuss the granular nature of the data LexisNexis Risk Solutions offers its customers and the breadth of sources used to meet their needs. It’s astonishing. Cindy makes the point, one we heartily agree with at Lockstep , that risk is specific, a concern for each individual entity and that the data required by each entity varies based upon its specific concerns. And that’s why LexisNexis Risk Solutions tunes the data services it provides to the industry segment and individual firm. Sitting on top of such vast data resources and knowing the complications associated with deriving meaning from it all, LexisNexis Risk Solutions also provides analytical services that saves an enterprise from having to analyze the data itself. This is a great conversation if you want to understand the data provider role, the scale of its operations, and its priorities. So take a listen.…

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EP9: The Bigger Step: Want a Single Digital ID? 14:03

2 years тому14:03

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In this quick take, Steve and George discuss the idea of a single digital ID through a review of the proposed bill currently in front of Australian legislators. We being by comparing that approach to two very different models: India's Aadhaar program and the "shadow IDs" as employed by commercial data providers. We are excited by the steps Australia is taking to secure the online activity of its citizens. This is serious work with many of the required elements for success already in place. And connecting those elements into a strong chain will be challenging. We conclude with a discussion on the quality of the data feeding into any system performing identification. How do you know that the data is authentic when it is presented through plaintext? Like chip cards and passkeys, we posit that device-bound data is required for secure online interactions. This concern isn't just about what's happening in Australia, of course. The problems of data authenticity and how to integrate a new digital attribute into KYC processes are non-trivial. So take a listen and get in touch.…

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EP8: A Big Little Step: Australia Shifts from Digital Identity to Digital ID 16:02

2 years тому16:02

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Australia's online security community - government, banking, and providers - has made a major, deliberate move. Over the last year, the term "digital identity" has been replaced by "digital ID" in government and industry publications and press releases. Steve and George unravel this deliberate linguistic shift from the amorphous 'digital identity' to the more concrete and pragmatic 'digital ID', and understand why this nuanced change is more than mere semantics. It's a shift that promises greater clarity in technology, legislation, and personal identification. Tune in and explore a future where proving who you are online is not just more secure, but refreshingly straightforward. Why does this matter? As Steve and George discuss it in this episode of Making Data Better , it accurately shifts the focus of policy and technical work on to the quality of the data used for identification purposes. It frees everyone from the impossible tasks of representing our "identities" digitally. Through our discussion, we celebrate the strides made by Australia in addressing the advancement of digital identity systems—a contrast to the comparatively uncoordinated, market-driven efforts seen in the U.S . Steve and George conclude with their perspective on how to secure digital IDs using device-assisted presentation. Plaintext presentation is the enemy. It gives hackers endless opportunities to copy (via data breaches) and replay (via fraud) that data. There is a straightforward solution that we have done before: marry the cryptographic strength of how chip cards are secured to the convenience of smartphone presentation and we have the opportunity to remove breach incentive by making our digital ID data better. There's plenty of work ahead but there's great power in what could be an uncontroversial, technically practical, achievable approach. So take a listen.…

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EP7: Confidential Computing: Protecting Data and Code in Use 37:47

2 years тому37:47

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Data provides the basis for how we make decisions. An enemy of security these days, from our point of view, is plain text. We need better than that. We need device-assisted support for proving where data comes from and how it's been handled. We need systems that keep data (and code) from being altered without cause, that give us the ability to trace the change history of data. Confidential computing is a new compute paradigm that provides a hardware-based foundation for running code and the data it manipulates. It safeguards data and code (it's all data; it's all code) in its most vulnerable state: while it's being processed. In this episode of Making Data Better Steve and George are joined by Anjuna's Mark Bauer to dive into this new model's high impact on security and low impact on cloud app development. Mark dissects the mechanics behind this approach including how it strengthens the software supply chain through hardware-based attestation. He addresses its fit in modern cloud infrastructure including Kubernetes, data loss prevention (DLP), API scanning and more. The conversation addresses the initial major use cases for confidential computing. High risk environments including defense, banking, and healthcare are obvious. Not so obvious is securing multi-party data sets in the cloud for machine learning and AI-based applications. So take a listen to this episode of Making Data Better and learn how hardware-based security can harden the cloud.…

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EP6: Building a Credential Management Platform: So Many Stakeholders, So Many Use Cases 34:49

2 years тому34:49

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Credential sharing is complex and exciting. Take a listen to our guest, Dan Stemp from JNCTN, in this installment of Making Data Better. We discuss JNCTN's credential sharing platform and its major use cases. Discover how managing digital identities supports the work of critical industries, from power generation to healthcare. We unpack the intricate relationships between those who rely on credentials, the individuals who hold them, and the authorities who issue them. Dan tells us the story of his firm's evolution from card personalization bureau to today's digital credential management scheme. We discuss the firm's clients' transition from physical tokens to digital credential presentation. Of course, we discuss wallets because they are the natural containers to hold verifiable credentials and we address JNCTN's proprietary approaches, the W3C, and big players like Apple and Google. Implementation of systemic systems is never easy. JNCTN has multiple stakeholders to convince. We examine enterprise adoption and the leverage points that resonate with the relyingn parties, the risk owners, who deploy these systems. It's not just about risk mitigation and operational efficiency. So, take a listen as Dan, Steve, and George share their enthusiasm for verifiable credential sharing and the breadth of applications ahead.…

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EP5: Navigating digital ID: The role of government 41:09

2 years тому41:09

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Ever wondered about government's role in online identification and how it could expand to help our digital economy function better and safer? Or how government data quality directly impacts risk assessment? In this episode of Making Data Better , we tackle where US and Australian governments stand on protecting our digital IDs and personal credentials. Join us as Jeremy Grant , Managing Director of Technology Business Strategy at Venable LLP, brings his insights on security technology strategy, policy, finance, and more to Making Data Better . Jeremy speaks to his decades-long experience with US federal and state government initiatives. And to the work of his organization, the Better Identity Coalition (check out its policy papers for federal and state -level policymakers!) Government issues the credentials we rely on to prove who we are. Regulating how those credentials may be protected to enjoy expanded usage is both necessary and fraught with complications. Tech regulation has a history of being well behind technology's evolution. That said, it is coherent policy and political direction that is needed. Disparate agencies may fully understand the potential of the assets they manage but without strategic focus at the highest level, the challenge of digital ID will remain. And our exposure to fraudsters, synthetic identities, and nation-state attacks will continue. This is no small matter. FINCEN, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, recently announced their analysis of bank-filed suspicious activity reports. They found that $212 billion of transactions were tied to compromised identity. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress, estimated between $100 and $135 billion losses in public benefits fraud during the pandemic. This is real money, ending up in the hands of organized criminals and adversarial nation-states. So, take a listen to this episode with Jeremy Grant and Lockstep's Steve Wilson and George Peabody . There's work to be done.…

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EP4: Redemption after data disaster: Heartland Payments breach spurs card data innovation 43:52

2 years тому43:52

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In October 2008 Heartland Payment Systems discovered it had been breached. Albert Gonzalez and several other individuals hacked their way through an external company website using SQL injection — an attack that too often still works — to the core of Heartland’s systems. They were able to copy credit and debit card numbers and other data used in payment authorization. At the time, that data enabled those who bought it to create new magstripe cards. Some stats about the hack: Heartland’s stock price fell by 77% in the months following the attack. Some 130 million card numbers were exposed. Heartland paid $60 million in fines to Visa, over $40M to Mastercard, $5M to Discover, and $3.6M to AMEX. The business of signing up merchants to accept cards using Heartland’s services took a big hit. To me, this is also something of a hero story. Because Heartland’s leadership, led by CEO Bob Carr, got angry. Yes, at the hackers. But more important they took that anger and frustration and used it to fill a gaping hole in card system security, way out in front of what the card systems themselves required. I was fortunate enough to play a minor part in Heartland’s response. As an analyst, I got to know some key players who will tell their part of the story in this episode.…

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EP3: Data in our digital lives: Many moving parts | 02 25:04

2 years тому25:04

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Self-sovereign identity, digital wallets, risk management, federated identity, and a recap of the Identiverse 2023 conference are among the topics discussed in this episode of Making Data Better. George and Steve complete their landscape view of data quality and security. Identiverse 2023 reflected those topics, indicating a shift toward digital wallets, passkeys, and verifiable credentials as essential components of a resilient digital ecosystem. We discuss these and what's not being addressed to date. So take a listen as we set the table for Making Data Better and begin our series. We will speak to practitioners of the latest in data protection, tell the stories of data quality initiatives that have succeeded—and failed—and regularly rise above the weeds to provide perspective. With so many moving parts and so many changes, Making Data Better keeps it all in context.…

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EP2: Data in our digital lives: Many moving parts | 01 30:54

2 years тому30:54

30:54

Online trust? Digital identification? Wallets? Privacy? Data quality? If these topics resonate, join Lockstep's George Peabody and Steve Wilson in this, the first episode of Making Data Better , a podcast about data quality and the impact it has on how we protect, manage, and use the digital data critical to our lives. We focus on making data better because data quality has everything to do with making good decisions. We introduce the critical and complex concerns that affect online trust and risk management. One area where this really applies is in assessing risk. We believe data quality has an outsized impact on risk management. From relatively trivial decisions about where to go out to eat, to opening new bank accounts and sending money cross-border, each carries risk. Do we trust the data? Does it let us know who or what is on the other end of our digital interaction? There are so many moving parts to understand, evaluate, and discuss. We’ll unpack all this with experts from fintech, cyber, healthcare, government services, and academia. So take a listen and join us on this journey.…

Making Data Better

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EP1: Introducing Making Data Better 2:44

2 years тому2:44