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Japan's cyber-security minister has 'never used a computer'
- ceriodamus 8y agoWell, I guess no one can hack his computer at least. Most secure minister in Japan perhaps even.
- DoctorPenguin 8y agoSince he doesn't have an online identity or footprint so to say, wouldn't that make him a prime targt for identity theft?
- kaybe 8y agoSince now everyone knows this guy is not using a computer, anyone posing as him must be a fake. I think that should help.
- outofpaper 8y agoThat's one way to stay secure... If you don't have a computer your computer can't be hacked :P
- TremendousJudge 8y agothat's kinda the approach that intelligence agencies take nowadays, they are back to paper for the important stuff
- m0skit0 8y agoCitation needed
- TremendousJudge 8y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts-paper-nsa-leaks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts... Granted, it's Russian and not American, but I'd be surprised if other intelligence agencies weren't taking similar measures
- m0skit0 8y agoThanks for the reference!
- claydavisss 8y agoThe only people with an even better understanding of cybersecurity are the Amish
- AllegedAlec 8y agoShould a minister always have hands-on experience with what they are minister of, though?
- lessclue 8y agoUm, with things as technical as cyber security, yes.
- AllegedAlec 8y agoWhat makes technical subjects different from, let's say, education, or defence, or the ministry in charge of environmental business?
- Lio 8y agoAll of those things you've listed as examples should also be managed by someone with a technical understanding of them. I wouldn't want someone with no understand of the concept of inflation for example in charge of interest rates. Equally I wouldn't want someone in charge of nuclear weapons that doesn't understand that if you let of a bomb in the next country you'll get covered in your own fallout.
- rc_hadoken 8y agoit's harder to micro bullshit (be hands on) than macro (feign competence using "models") bullshit. If you are clueless about infosec or the hardware it relates to (using a computer) why are you a leader in the ministry of said field for a country?
- contravariant 8y agoShould a minister of cyber-security be able to answer questions about USB drives?
- Lio 8y agoThey should if USB drives are a vector for cyber attacks.
- dwheeler 8y agoThe theatre of the Absurd has reached New Heights. If you don't understand something, you shouldn't be running the department that focuses on it. The legislature should have vetted his expertise before even proposing him as a candidate.
- lsd5you 8y agoOr maybe other people these days don't understand when you don't actually need a computer, something which he is clearly an expert in!
- gaius 8y agoIt’s pretty rare, and has been for a long time, for a domain expert to be in charge of a government department. Like St Mattis is the first SecDef in a long while and it still took an act of Congress to get his appointment in.
- int0x80 8y agoIt might be wrong though, even if common. That might explain a few things in fact.
- Aeolun 8y agoI mean, there is a precedent of people being completely unqualified and still becoming the president of the most powerful country in the world. In comparison this is just a minor issue.
- Edgar_S 8y agoI think Putin is very competent and qualified. What are you talking about?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- laumars 8y agoI don't think it matters because ministers are so very rarely subject experts on the department they run. What annoys me more is when specialists give governments expert advice and then the government still goes off and does the complete opposite because of some predefined agenda they had. Or worse still, because of coercion from lobbyists.
- PaulHoule 8y agoPar for the course unfortunately. I remember the hearings after the problems with the Obamacare web site where the lady who ran Health and Human Services made it clear she was a believer in getting health care to people but seemed to think there was nothing she could do to make a software project succeed and that's completely untrue. (Turns out the editor of my college newspaper was a project manager on that one... An astrophysics professor told me not to get involved in a 'science-in-politics' program that he did and look what happened to him...)
- ceejayoz 8y agoHealthcare.gov is a fascinating study in what can go wrong, and what can go right. There's a fascinating article on how it was rescued here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-startup-saved-healthcare-gov-the-worst-website-in-america/397784/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-s...
- webwielder2 8y agoMy great aunt Ethel uses a computer to forward chain emails. That doesn't make her any more qualified to be cyber-security minister.
- steve_taylor 8y agoHasn’t she heard of the facebook?
- Aeolun 8y agoAt least she knows the concept, she’s a step ahead of him.
- hkt 8y agoSorry, she's overqualified. Ministers need to be blank slates
- baud147258 8y agoIt reminds me of the shadow home secretary falling for a Microsoft technical support scam. [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/08/abbott_pc_support_scam_confession/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/08/abbott_pc_support_s...
- gfodor 8y agoclearly the head of cyber security should be someone who understands the risk of computers. and anyone who truly does would never use one, so perhaps it's a fit after all.
- icebraining 8y ago"Jim Hacker: We got to give him something, I promised. Sir Humphrey: Well, what is he interested in? Does he watch television? Jim Hacker: He hasn't even got a set. Sir Humphrey: Fine, make him a Governor of the BBC." -- Yes, Prime Minister
- umichguy 8y agoFantastic Yes PM reference. Kudos! Honestly, that series has a reference for pretty much most scenarios, politics or otherwise, even today, especially these days. What a show.
- cm2187 8y agoIt was a fantastic tv show, written by insiders. One of the few shows about politics where you can actually learn something. And I have been told real stories from french ministries that mirror exactly what the show depicts in british ministries.
- mnw21cam 8y agoI think remember once the BBC news (TV) went into a story saying "We'll just show you this clip from Yes Prime Minister. Well, this just happened."
- umichguy 8y agoIt would've been perfect for what's going in recent times with Brexit and what not. It was one of the first Brit TV series I got into.
- mnw21cam 8y agoJim Hacker: Ministers are not experts. They are chosen expressedly because they know nothing.
- taneq 8y agoHa-Ha-Only-Serious response: I've actually been told that ministers are explicitly selected to portfolios that they know nothing about so that they an be an impartial filter for the people working in that area. You don't choose an Information Minister because they're an IT guru, you choose them because they have no knowledge of the subject (and hence no personal preference or bias) and they will just go with whatever the actual experts working 'below' them say.
- Aeolun 8y ago> "Since I was 25 years old and independent I have instructed my staff and secretaries. I have never used a computer in my life," What golden cage was this man born in that he had a staff and secretaries at 25?
- sova 8y agoJapan has it's own ol boys club
- mmjaa 8y agoIts not unrealistic .. western society has generally gotten less mature, not more. In my 20's I did stuff that none of the kids of today even consider feasible ..
- nradov 8y agoAt age 23 Horatio Nelson was the captain of a warship leading hundreds of men in combat, and did a pretty fair job of it too.
- thrower123 8y agoNelson also had 10 years of experience in command at that point, starting as a midshipman at 13.
- syn0byte 8y agoIn a lot of cases it simply isn't feasible today. Remember; a Denny's waitress in 1980 has as much or more spending power than the medium salary with a college degree in 2018.
- skippybobby 8y agoPeople like him blow my mind. How do you make others believe that you are a great leader, a mastermind at things you do when in reality you don't know a thing.
- booleandilemma 8y agoSo his interview didn’t involve a whiteboard then?
- TallGuyShort 8y agoNot necessarily. I've seen people ace whiteboard interviews and then not be able to use a computer.
- mosselman 8y agoSomeone sent me this link with the description "Japan's cyber-security minister doesn't use computers" and I thought it was some elaborate way to prevent being hackable... boy I didn't expect this.
- philwelch 8y agoI mean, not using computers is the only completely reliable method of cybersecurity.
- HenryBemis 8y agoSo the Olympic Games will be ran with pen, paper and hourglass!!
- hkt 8y agoCan't get more secure than that.
- HugoDaniel 8y agoWow. Much skill. Such boss.
- pcurve 8y agolol clearly, he knows what he's doing. Frankly I'm envious.
- iamben 8y agoAppreciate this is to a pretty ridiculous degree, but isn't this pretty much the story across the board? Anecdotally I heard about some of the conversations with the government and adult industry regarding the UK porn filter. It was something along the lines of: Industry: "OK, we get you want to put a block in front of adult sites. But what about all the porn Twitter?" Govt: "There's porn on Twitter?" When we're all getting angry about encryption and privacy and backdoors (and whatever else), it's probably prudent to remember these are the kind of people we're dealing with.
- crunchlibrarian 8y agoI know and work with a lot of millionaires and a couple billionaires, once you get to that level of eliteness they view using a computer as a boring chore for a technician, like fixing the plumbing or paying the bills, something they are far too important for and delegate to staff. Surprisingly, this seems to be true regardless of age
- baybal2 8y agoHad an opportunity to labour for 1 year for a "start up" ran by a 40 years old guy with rich papa when I was back in Canada. The dude opened the company with 7 mln cash out of his pocket, hired lots of big name consultants as directors, and never been seen since, until the company flopped. The man was said to employ a personal typist. Since then, saw the very same thing everywhere you can expect it; rich and powerful men I knew personally rarely even had a cellphone, and they didn't read news. With regard of that, I think stories of officials from 3rd world countries claiming to be learning more about their own countries from words of foreign diplomats, or when they flee to the West themselves, don't sound so unbelievable anymore.
- benjohnson 8y ago>>personally rarely even have a cellphone, and they don't read news. I built my company from nothing - and still clean the toilet as part of the team. I however don't give out my cell phone number as 99% of the time the resulting conversation would not be the best use of my time.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- crispyambulance 8y agoMinisters are all about government functions. As long as he has the right people below him and is able to listen to them and exercise judgment, that's what really counts. What's weird though is "never" having used a computer. I mean, doesn't everyone write/edit with a computer these days? Do people at that level just verbally stream-of-consciousness dictate their memos and secretaries enter them? THAT is weird.
- newsbinator 8y agoYou can't really exercise judgement about a context you can't fathom. It'd be like a person who's never been to Japan, never studied Japanese, and only read about Japan in popular magazines or seen news reports on tv exercising judgement about how Japanese society should be run. Sure, he'd have the right people below him. But he'd have no idea if what they're telling him makes any sense, and often his intuition about what he's hearing would be wrong, because he'd be using analogies that don't/can't fit. That's how you get into "internet is a series of tubes" territory.
- crispyambulance 8y ago> But he'd have no idea if what they're telling him makes any sense, and often his intuition about what he's hearing would be wrong, because he'd be using analogies that don't/can't fit. That all depends on how much trust and responsibility he puts into the hands of his subordinates. In a way, it's like dividing a role into several people. He handles the government-side, the domain experts handle their sides. A micro-manager, of course, would be a disaster in such a position but it can work with the right people and organizational structures.
- arbuge 8y ago> and exercise judgment This is specifically the part he will probably struggle with if he is responsible for cybersecurity but has never used a computer. Sometimes things sounds crazy simply because they really are.
- Someone1234 8y ago> As long as he has the right people below him and is able to listen to them and exercise judgment, that's what really counts. So he's a puppet then? Different people just pull on different strings and he makes a call arbitrarily? While nobody expects the minister in charge of e.g. nuclear power to be a nuclear engineer, we do expect them to understand how the plants basically operate, and common failure conditions. In this case we have someone expected to make calls about computer security who not only lacks expertise in that area, but even in the broader area of computing. The issue isn't that they aren't a subject matter expert, the issue is that they lack such core foundation that they cannot listen to different subject matter experts and contextualize that information. I'm all for less technical managers as a concept but there are degrees. If the manager cannot even understand the context, that's a legitimate problem.
- aurizon 8y agoThis is the end result of the 'old boy network', where the aged rise to the top on the basis of how many ticks they have groomed off the fur of the silverback's fur, in the USA/Japan, with no fur, it is the ass licks ledger that counts. Sadly, this is fully operational in the USA military, where billions are spent on old weaponry whose life in a modern war will be measured in minutes when they meet modern drones. (by drones, I mean land based drone attack tanks etc, with costs only 5-10% of the cost of the manned equivalents, air based drones, surface water drones as well as submarine drones) We see China and Russia unfettered by this old boy network that are allowing their brains unfettered freedom to make modern stuff. This has happened before, when the blitzkrieg fought horse drawn gun carts at the start of WW2, when allied armies in Europe were prime examples of the old boy network. Why do we have it? We have a bribery and feedback mechanism in Congress that quantifies bribery and ass licking to perfection. An elected representative HAS NO SECRET BALLOT!!. We can all see how he votes, as can all the bribers, who can call him to account. We say this exists to allow the voters to see that there rep did their bidding YADA-YADA-YADA - we all know it allow the bribery effectiveness to be watched and measured, so you can threaten to cut them off if they do not dance to the briber's tune. RANT/ How to get a better way? Empower all, with online voting of all eligible voters, in the style of the original Greek democracy. Pay people for their votes, hold back tax refunds for people who do not vote etc. This needs to be fine tuned. Chance of success = zero, as all the well bribed elected officials do not want their gravy train to end. /RANT
- eiaoa 8y ago> (by drones, I mean land based drone attack tanks etc, with costs only 5-10% of the cost of the manned equivalents, air based drones, surface water drones as well as submarine drones) Don't you mean guided missiles and torpedoes? The whole unmanned weapon concept is much older than toy quadcopters. > We see China and Russia unfettered by this old boy network that are allowing their brains unfettered freedom to make modern stuff. What? Are you familiar with the terms "oligarch" and "guanxi"? > Empower all, with online voting of all eligible voters Online voting is a bad idea. It's far more easily and cheaply subverted than most paper-based analog voting systems.
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- swarnie_ 8y agoMinisters are figureheads; they take national policy and filter it down through their departments then report results back to the top. Taking the UK as an example our health minister isn't a doctor and our education sec. isn't a professor. The executive branch of government acts no differently to any other large company.
- Yizahi 8y agoHe simply transcended lowly computers and can now cyber directly. He is now the UUUUSEEEEER!!!
- dev_north_east 8y agoDoes a defence minister need to have used a gun?
- ryanmercer 8y agoOne would hope they had military experience which, yes, would have required the use of firearm at a minimum to qualify.
- dev_north_east 8y ago> One would hope they had military experience Really? Why so? I've seen ministers put in place with expertise in the actual area (doctor becoming minister of health for example) and it makes no difference. They're just managers after all, the "real work" is done by the civil servants.
- ryanmercer 8y ago>Really? Why so? For a minister of defense/secretary of defense type role you would hope they had been a career military person, specifically an officer. Officers, at least in the United States, are taught many things from tactics to military history, they understand command structure, they understand procedure and policy, as a career officer they would have years of experience in various commands serving in various capacities. If you take John Smith from ABC Corp that got a degree from Harvard and is your golfing buddy and give him control over it, sure he's great at handling the civilians and the fobbits but he has no understanding of how a military operates. When generals/admirals tell him things he has no good context.
- craigsmansion 8y agoAt face value it seems ridiculous, but really, what benefits would it bring had he been a run of the mill e-mail and web user? Assuming he's generally a competent person, he will now be forced to listen to and be informed by smart people in his department instead of putting his foot down and saying "I've used outlook all my life, so obviously I'm an expert. I've never been hacked, so policy is now that everyone should use Outlook."
- toolslive 8y agoNothing new: It's called Putt's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putt%27s_Law_and_the_Successful_Technocrat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putt%27s_Law_and_the_Successfu...
- ryanmercer 8y agoThere's a name for everything, isn't there?
- h2onock 8y agoHaha I thought that too!
- jvzr 8y agoI wonder what is the name of the Law that dictates that there is a name for everything?
- toolslive 8y agowell, there is not a name for everything. In English, there are missing words (like the word for "the day after tomorrow").
- dayafter2maro 8y agohttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/overmorrow https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/overmorrow
- grecy 8y agoI worked for a subsidiary of a very large telco. The Director of IT had no idea what IPv6 was, had to get me to "configure" her home wifi router (i.e. turn it on), and on and on the list goes. Plenty of people in high positions have no idea how to "do" anything more than run a meeting and summarize stuff for those above them.
- asianthrowaway 8y agoHe simply operates on a higher level of abstraction, above the low level interface which constitute a mouse and keyboard.
- IOT_Apprentice 8y agoSakurada blamed one particularly unimpressive performance in parliament on the opposition MP Renho Murata, complaining that she had not given him her questions in advance. “Since there was no prior notice about the questions, I had no idea what would be asked at the session,” the Asahi quoted him as saying. When Renho asked him how much funding the central government would contribute to the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, he responded: “1,500 yen”, which works out at just over $13, some way below the actual sum of 150 billion yen.
- Complexicate 8y agoHe meant "1,500 億". 1,500 oku yen = 150 billion yen. I don't know about the rest of your post, but that part is cherry picking something out of context.
- cm2187 8y agoTo quote a line from the french movie Ridicule: after all we trust the eunuch with the harem...
- exabrial 8y agoTook a move out of Equifax's playbook I see: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/equifax-ceo-hired-a-music-major-as-the-companys-chief-security-officer-2017-09-15 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/equifax-ceo-hired-a-music-...
- wglb 8y agoThis is inappropriate. One of the original and widely-respected hackers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peiter_Zatko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peiter_Zatko (Mudge) has a music degree. There is no degree program that will get you to CSO. Talented CSOs come from all over the map. One of my favorites has a degree in Anthropological Forensics.
- exabrial 8y agoOh I totally agree, you can come from any walk of life, and sometimes domain experience is helpful. However, if 150m people's personal private information is disclosed inappropriately it is a valid criticism.
- wglb 8y agoI think this is missing the point about the Equifax hack. Here is my opinion in more detail: https://ciexinc.com/blog/quick-assessment-of-a-companys-security-posture/ https://ciexinc.com/blog/quick-assessment-of-a-companys-secu...
- z3phyr 8y agoIts beneficial for people in leadership roles to have some experience in the grounded disciplines; But it is not mandatory. Historically, there have been many kings and emperors who were not professional soldiers or strategists. Yet many of the states they headed were successful in warfare. Many of the kings or emperors were great soldiers, but not good governors; yet still the kingdoms were governed. A leader has one job, to lead. It includes taking advice from specialists and make a decision. In representative democracy, the true job of a representative is to convey the decision making to the people they represent. This includes heeding to the advice of specialists who have been assigned to help the "people", through that representative. A representative in that case is just a messenger. A messenger does not need to understand the contents of the message. The representative is from among the general populace and the general populace in plural is hardly specialist. Edit(1): I understand that this situation is unforgivable. A minister of Cyber-Security must at least be used to the "Cyber" part. I actually commented because in Representative systems which I am used to, the specialty of Minister does not matter much. The minister is a part of the cabinet, which is just simple power sharing for rubber stamping the decision making process. The minister generally comes from the parliament. Its function is to legitimize a bureaucrat's decision, which the rep always does. It does not hamper the actual cyber security program (It also does not improve it at an accelerated rate, this just proves that cyber security is not a relative major priority for the current Japanese government, but that's beyond the point), which is run by specialized bureaucrats (most probably). Friendly Americans, the Minister does not hold much power, but just legitimatizes "people's agreement" to the actual officer in charge. Edit(2): Please forgive my English! I am not a native speaker.
- HenryBemis 8y agoWhat we've got here is... a typical Peter Principle. Japan being such an efficient countru, just took the Peter Principle to a whole new level. I hope this guy gets the job done and we enjoy safe and secure Olympic Games.
- wpietri 8y agoSure, but smart kings who aren't soldiers delegate to experienced generals. In America, an elected president may not be an expert, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sure will be. So it still seems weird to me that the problem of cybersecurity would be delegated to somebody who a) doesn't know beans about it and b) has spent his life avoiding learning a thing.
- qaq 8y agoHmm I think this is a good indication he is prob well informed about threats landscape.
- usermac 8y agoImmediately thought of the trump administration.
- JankInTheBank 8y agoYou'll be thinking of them til 2024, kiddo.
- OJFord 8y agoSounds like an effective cyber-security policy to me.
- gcb0 8y agobrazil one-upped it. soon to be minister of education is a high school dropout, porn actor, who won fame in a tv reality show some 10yrs ago
- Skrillex 8y agoThey have probably been to a school at some point though. This guy is on another level.
- Tehchops 8y agoThat's actually the most secure way to use a computer, so maybe he's on to something? ;-) All joking aside, color me shocked a policy-maker has 0 experience with $thing they are writing policy for.
- tremendo 8y agoDoes the guy have a smartphone?
- lordnacho 8y agoMaybe I’ll sound like a bitter old techie, but it’s absolutely wrong to have someone with no direct experience managing something that is technical. If you can’t code, you shouldn’t manage coders. If you’re not a lawyer, don’t run a law firm. If you haven’t been in charge of a class of kids, you shouldn’t run a school. And that’s despite the day-to-day of these management roles not touching code/clients/kids. The experience gained in a few years on any ladder is enough to appreciate most of how people in those fields think. Have you ever tried working for someone who didn’t have relevant experience? You get people deciding that they don’t need an issue tracker, let alone a code repo. You get people who think paying Google 5 bucks a months is not worth it, they’d rather have their own email server. And it’s not that there’s never a case for having your own server, it’s that the case is never made in a technical way (eg we want security / uptime / whatever). The techies end up having to translate complex reasoning into something a layman could understand, or at least pretend to. A lot of time is wasted explaining things. And then when there’s feedback - and most people cannot resist the temptation to act like they’re contributing - it only makes sense to the non technical staff, while the tech people are trying to implement whatever crazy modification it is they’ve been given. What these people tend to do is to make everything a management issue. So management, just like politics ends up having its own ladder. Relevant experience for being a health minister is to have been an MP. Relevant experience for managing a code department is having managed the interns. It massively corrosive to let this continue. And before someone makes this argument, it's perfectly possible for techies to do the managing and politics.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pokemongoaway 8y agoIt is a demonstration of the culture we are in to have to acknowledge that we sound "bitter" or "old fashioned" merely to state a self-evident truth that people with more experience know more...
- nnforall 8y agoYou shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you've worked on the assembly line? You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you have engineered an automobile? You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you have been in marketing? You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you have been a personal injury attorney? You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you have been an accountant?
- fredley 8y agoOn the plus side, this guy is literally unhackable!
- lolc 8y agoEver heard of social engineering?
- wlll 8y agoBest way to keep your online data safe? Never go online!
- xedarius 8y agoSounds crazy, but how often do you see CTO’s that know nothing about technology.
- evrydayhustling 8y agoCame here hoping this was some five-dimensional chess / wallfacer situation where he had airgapped himself in order to be the perfect incorruptible security officer. Alas, nope.
- WhyNotHugo 8y agoI see a lot of comments arguing "you don't need to be an expert in the field to be a minister". That's pretty right, IMHO, but we're now talking about him not being an expert, we're talking about him not having the slightest clue. Not knowing what a USB drive is for, is akin to a minister of defence not knowing what a bullet is for, or a minister of health not knowing what medication is (or what it's used for). These are key, basic elements, and most mid-level education citizen will understand what they are. It's hard to understand how he can represent their best interest in that scope.
- SiempreViernes 8y agoWell, the selection of someone who never has used a computer does speak pretty loudly of how important the post is considered, so I expect the best interests of the people was never a big concern.
- Abutere 8y agoLike putting a Quaker in charge of the military during war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon
- flatfilefan 8y agoJust compare it to the current German minister of defense, previously family and education minister, physician by education.
- merb 8y agoto be fair that what she says about our troops is most often pretty on point. I mean I do not like her and she also says a lot of bullshit. also it's not really hard to see the weak points of our "bundeswehr" and trying to make it better. Modernization is basically the right thing to do, but you didn't need to be an expert to see that our bundeswher needed that.
- Hanibaal 8y agoMy Algorithm professor in College had never used a Computer. He had a phd in Mathematics. Started off teaching Mathematics. When CS department was setup, he was invited to teach Maths in CS department. Then he switched to teaching subjects like Algorithms, Data Structures etc. He had never sat in-front of a Computer in life.
- pulse7 8y agoIBM was saved by an outsider Louis Gerstner - who worked outside computer industry before entering IBM... Maybe this was his critical advantage...
- codeulike 8y agoWell you can't get more cyber-secure than that.
- atmosx 8y agoWhat's new[1]? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPgZfhnCAdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPgZfhnCAdI (The Daily Show - Burn Noticed)
- asaph 8y agoIt's astonishing that there exists any grown person working in a white collar career that has never used a computer. That could be a headline on its own.
- ecabuk 8y agoHe’s smart. If he doesn’t use computers, nobody can hack him.
- titanix2 8y agoThanks for the link. I saw that guy at the TV and the fact he never used a computer but didn't understood why it was a big deal.
- asaph 8y agoJapan's cyber-security minister should resign immediately. This person is totally unqualified for the job.
- gargalatas 8y agoI thought that these only happen to Greece!
- asprouse 8y agoabstinence is the best form of cyber-security
- tlrobinson 8y agoMaybe he knows something we don't? You know what they say, the only truly secure system is one that is powered off.
- ghostbrainalpha 8y agoOff Topic but does that mean he doesn't consume pornography at all? Do they still even sell magazines/DVD's and stuff like that in Japan?
- mettamage 8y agoSo how can I become a minister or manager? If it doesn't take domain knowledge, then what roadmap / path / strategy do I need to become one? It's a real question I have on my mind after reading this.
- fosk 8y agoHaving good leadership skills and a successful track record (strong plus if they come with clear and measurable ROI). That and being able to master networking and public interactions (which a good leader knows to do anyways).
- samgranieri 8y agoWhat. The. Fuck.
- isoskeles 8y agoThe most secure computer is that which you don't use at all. - zen koan
- weliketocode 8y agoLet's equate this to sales for a second. For success in sales, some would argue that salesmanship is vastly more important than nature of the salesman to the product. iow, A great salesman is someone who can sell ice to eskimos. Perhaps there is an equivalent argument to be made in management. A great manager is someone who can manage anyone.
- michaco33 8y agoAbstinence.
- C1sc0cat 8y agoObviously from the school of thought that amateurs (chaps who know chaps) know best just like Sir Bonar Neville-K https://twitter.com/sirbonar https://twitter.com/sirbonar And of course the star of SIS Kim This is a parody account "I hope"
- lordnacho 8y agoWhy does the "he can't get hacked without a computer" keep coming up all over this discussion? You're not a failure as a health minister if you get cancer.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 8y agoImho this man is a terrible choice for cyber-security minister. Which has little to do with the fact that he has never used a computer, and everything to do with the fact that he decided that it was a smart idea to admit so publicly.
- httpz 8y agoYou don't have to be a mechanical engineer to lead a car company. However, you should at least know how to drive. This guy is basically saying he never drove a car.
- StreamBright 8y agoHe is very safe that way.
- alecco 8y agoI’ve heard Music majors are great at computer security.
- beatpanda 8y agoSay what you want about his approach, but it's pretty foolproof personal cybersecurity
- forkLding 8y agoIsn't cybersecurity similar to a minister of defence but in the cyber realm? Wouldn't they have to at least know how things work?
- andrerocker 8y agoMeanwhile in Japan: "The elected Brazilian president never drove a boteco" :joy:
- aezell 8y agoI'm envious.
- tekkk 8y agoSure for politics this is a bit different as the minister is probably more involved with budgeting and allocation of resources guided by his hopefully knowledgable advisors. It takes, however, special skill to be able to navigate through such deeply technical field as cybersecurity. While it's absurd to require him to be expert in the area, I would argue the ministry would benefit from him having a healthy curiosity towards technical innovation. Otherwise it's my opinion as a technical person, that those knowledgeable in the cybersecurity matters will be frustrated by his inability to grasp even the basic concepts relating to the technical issues at hand. This will lead to poor morale and general apathy as technical ability is undervalued and instead political skill is preferred. Not a good mix for cybersecurity.
- iharhajster 8y agoI hope Japan is just playing with the Sun Tzu's idea: when far appear near. They say he hadn't used a computer, but maybe he's a hacker instead. On more serious note, I also support idea the person in charge has to have medium knowledge of all aspects of the subject he or she is appointed to lead, mixed with basic knowledge of overlapping subjects with the subject at hand, and finally hard earned high level leadership/people skills.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ericathegreat 8y agoTo be fair, not using a computer is pretty much the gold standard when it comes to maintaining your cyber security.
- jiveturkey 8y ago... and he’s also never been hacked. <eddie murphy thinkaboutit meme>.jpg