Jerry Fishenden

@ntouk.bsky.social

281 Followers 179 Following

Technologist, writer, composer. Delivering better organisations and outcomes through digital transformation, esp. security, identity & privacy + fixing disasters. FIET & WGGB. London & Lerwick. Latest book https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F23N7WSS

A screenshot from Ceefax showing a page about the "UK Papers". It displays a story about how the front pages are dominated by Nigel Farage's decision to resign and trigger a by-election.
A samurai outfit
A screenshot from the Crapita Civil Service Pension website. It shows the response after filling in full contact details ... although it acknowledges "We've sent your enquiry" it then says "Your reference number is NOT FOUND". The website has been like this since it launched, unable to let members re-register and then when they fill in the contact form, failing again.
A pie graph showing the sources of current energy supply in the UK - with gas accounting for over 44%
A table setting out the state of digital government in 2001. It covers the pan-government website UKonline; identification, authentication, and single sign-on; cross-sector connectivity; e-Signatures; and data interoperability
A snapshot of the Civil Service pension website showing that “due to a technical issue” they are currently unable to access records and the contact centre cannot answer any queries …
A warning message within the One Login app — stating that everything will be deleted from the app if the user logs out from one of their One Login accounts in order to log in in again with another one, breaking the government's own identity assurance principles.
The cover page of the local free Memphis newspaper featuring BB King to celebrate 100 years since his birth
Louis Armstrong’s trumpet
A puffin stands on a cliff edge looking out to sea
A colourful infographic "bingo card" with 20 of the most frequently re-used phrases in government digital announcements — from "world leader in ..." to "powering the future" and "unleash potential"
A photo of a small stack of hardback second editions of my book "Fracture. The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it."
The images are screenshots of works in the LibGen database that show copyright works allegedly used by Meta to train its AI models. They include at least one of my books and multiple articles, including some co-written with colleagues
A summary visual overview of the structure of Fracture illustrating what was described in the previous posts
However, even when organisations think they’re resilient, it isn’t always true. One example I encountered involved a nationally important organisation keen to avoid a single point of network failure. They contracted two different companies to ensure that should one of their networks go down the other would remain available. Everything looked good on paper. Until one day a digger involved in construction work suddenly took out both networks simultaneously. How was this possible? It turned out that the two different contractors had routed their cables through the same underground duct and failed to ensure the two networks were physically well-separated.
A PowerPoint slide from 2000 with a bullet point summary of how to develop digitally-enabled policy initiatives through 'Baby Steps': build and learn, iterative, and trial and error, including the need to set expectations with citizens and politicians
A box labelled Fullers of Chiswick, 24 beers of Christmas
The draft cover of version two of my book Fracture. It has a computer screen with the title displayed on it, and an election ballot box dimmed in the background.
An AI generated image full of nonsense text and a complete lack of understanding of the topic
A screenshot of the original UK government website, the CCTA Government Information Service, in 1994
An image of a UK Government spokesperson making a series of announcements from 1996 to 2024 about how technology will transform the public sector
A photo of the green commemorative plaque on Kirsty MacColl's former home in Ealing. It says she lived and recorded here 1985-2000.
A glorious sunny day, blue seas and skies, and in the centre of the image is the long sand tombolo that connects St Ninian’s Isle to the Shetland mainland.
Interior shots of Pitzhanger Manor
A list of government strategies from 1996 to 2024, claiming that technology is about to deliver "better and more efficient services". The extracts come from strategies published in 1996, 1998, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2024.
The album cover for Portraits in Jazz, the Bill Evans Trio
David Soul as Jerry Springer, in Jerry Springer the Opera
St Ninian's tombolo, Shetland Islands
A nighttime view from London Bridge over the Thames, with St Paul’s visible in the distance