The Author
The information below is taken from the home page of my professional web-site immediately after my retirement.
Is PKI Relevant in the 'Mobile Device \ Cloud' Era of the Internet?
Robert Hannigan, who was the director of GCHQ until 2017, once shared his thoughts about PKI on GCHQ.gov.uk, I extracted the following from the statement he made: “Almost every aspect of life online relies on PKI” Powerful stuff indeed!
My Quote :-) Without PKI, there'd be no HTTPS. Without HTTPS, there'd be no closed padlock in your browser address bar. Without a padlock, there'd be no online banking or secure login to email... or whatever!
Professional Life
This section's purpose is to tell you a little bit about my former professional self and some of the work I once did. I've published a few items which inform you about an IT security capability in which I supposedly exhibited expertise - Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). I was an IT security consultant who was sometimes available to hire, I also worked as a volunteer IT buddy.
Career
I've put together a page where you can see certificates / awards I have gained, newspaper and magazine articles written by / about me, click on this link to view it. You'll see that the page is organised into the following categories:
- Past
- Present
- Future - I'm most excited about this category!
Videos
During my career I gave presentations to audiences regarding IT security matters and generated videos of technical solutions for use by customers, you can view some of them by clicking on this link.
Documents
PKI White Papers
I've written white papers for nCipher (formerly Thales e-Security) and Oxford Computer Group (now thirdspace.net). The nCipher document is related to best practices for offline CAs, whereas the Oxford Computer Group document is a general backgrounder on PKI.
PKI Solution Documentation
Almost every engagement I worked on resulted in my writing solution documents incorporating high and low level designs, operational guides, key signing ceremonies or integration approaches. The sample documents I've provided have been vastly redacted.
Legacy Documentation
After some reminiscing I uploaded some random documents I authored during the early stages of my IT career. Some of it was in the days of DOS (pre-Windows) and before networking reached its TCP/IP nadir. The documents are a hotchpotch which I haven't attempted to put any formal structure around.?
IT Security Skills
Rather than publish a curriculum vitae / resume informing you of my IT security skills, I've given a brief summary of some of what I considered to be the highlights. You can view my professional IT skills by clicking on this link.
Companies I Previously Worked For / At
I put together a list of most of the companies I worked for / at during my career during a trip down nostalgia lane, you can view it by clicking this link. Some engagements were as short as one day, the longest was with the Metropolitan Police Service, which lasted for six years (elapsed).