About

Information security is one of the biggest issues of our time, affecting both individuals and society as a whole. It seems like every day there’s another news story about websites being hacked or critical software vulnerabilities. As more of our lives and our infrastructure go online, things will only get worse.

And yet most of us are being asked to make decisions, both individually about our own security and collectively about society as a whole that we’re not equipped to make. Security is about trade-offs, and you can’t choose the balance between usability and security, or between cost and security, unless you understand the implications of your choices. On this blog, I hope to provide enough information that my readers can make better-informed decisions.

And it’s called Opinionated Information Security for a reason. I don’t take a neutral point-of-view, as supposedly found in Wikipedia articles. I have opinions, and I plan to share them. I hope that I will give you enough information that you can have opinions of your own, whether or not they’re the same as mine.

I’m a Mac OS X and iOS user myself, and will inevitably be better-informed on those operating systems than on Windows or Android. But I’ll try to include the basics for all consumer operating systems. If you’re using Linux, or any other Unix variant (except OS X, iOS and Android) then I’ll assume you have a higher degree of technical knowledge.

Information security is a vast and complex field, and while I know a bit about a lot of things, I’m not an expert on everything. If I’ve made a mistake or omitted something important, please do let me know either by email or in the comments, and I’ll correct it and credit you (unless you ask not to be credited).