Making Data Better Lockstep Consulting Pty Ltd

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 UsageGovernment has an enormous interest in data. It is an issuer ...

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 mul...

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 identityVerifiable credentialsCommentary on Australia’s Digital ID legislation.

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 ...

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 sec...

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 a...