A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for CapX on how cybercrime really works, and how human error is at the root of most cyber attacks. In the intervening time we have had Covid, a massive increase in internet use, and a correspondingly massive spike in cybercrime. And for once, ‘massive’ is the […]
The big internet companies – they know all about us, right? Facebook tracks us, evaluates our preferences and weaknesses and thereby knows enough to make us do whatever Mark Zuckerberg chooses, right? Google watches us search and read and like or dislike and uses its supercomputers to extrapolate a world where we are all but […]
The world is about to experience one of the biggest regulatory revolutions ever. A high and fast-moving wave of new laws to control and shape the digital world is set to break, with the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act alongside new laws on AI and data governance in the EU and the […]
Felixstowe in Suffolk is the home of the busiest container port in the UK. It also happens to be my home town. So for a real-time spot check on the state of global logistics I only have to go to my top floor study and look across the deep water channel that leads ships into […]
There is something rum going on in the financial economy. Those markets that are supposed to allocate capital to the people and places that can use it best are coming up with some rather peculiar results. Is this a transitory fever, or something more chronic? In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of some […]
You will have heard of Bitcoin. That global financial craze that has already made millions or even billions for a few, a little bit for many, and mega losses for some. Most people still don’t really know what it is. What they do know is that not long ago you could get one of these […]
The Covid-19 crisis is approaching its economic peak. Most Western economies are largely closed. Stock markets have been in freefall for several weeks, and may yet test deeper lows. Companies are in shell-shocked reaction mode, scrambling to protect what remains by cutting commitments across the board. Yet that instinctive reaction – to conserve by reducing […]
In the world of financial markets and global economies the really big things rarely change rapidly. The last few weeks have proved to be an exception to the rule. In the space of days large economies have all but closed down, and financial markets have bounced up, down and side-to-side like a pinball. When change […]
Last month the UK government sprang a surprise by announcing a ban on the sale of all internal combustion engine cars and vans from 2035 – five years earlier than previously planned. No petrol, no diesels, and (depending on consultations) most likely no hybrids either. It sounds like a progressive, even daring, pro-environment policy. There […]
Cyber security is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Companies selling everything from encryption devices to internet firewalls and network security systems are popping up all over the place. According to Statista, by 2023 the global market for defences against cyber attack and online theft – the so-called ‘security as a service’ […]
I’ve spent much of the last year in my day job investigating the applicability of artificial intelligence. The question I’m always being asked is, ‘but does it work? The answer is…‘sort of’. The biggest promise with AI is how to deliver cognitive machine intelligence. ‘Cognitive’ is a word that is used rather freely, even though […]
Earlier this month the inventor of the worldwide web Sir Tim Berners-Lee called for an online bill of rights. That’s not a bad idea. But the devil is in the detail – or rather, the lack of it. The wide-ranging Contract for the Web, published by Sir Tim’s Web Foundation, is big on principles but […]
The ‘gig economy’ may be a horrible phrase but it manages to capture a lot of what is good and bad about the way the economy works now. Whether the world of ‘portfolio’ careers, ‘contingent’ employment and mobile working is a blissful liberation from the toils of nine-to-five or a trap designed to make the […]
Who owns the sky? It’s not such a crazy question. For the last hundred years or so – as long as aircraft have been an important part of economies – governments have claimed ownership of the airspace above our heads. Individuals or corporations may own land and use it as they see fit, but the […]
Artificial intelligence was the business story of 2018. But here is why I think 2019 is the year the story will unravel. Companies will start to question the cost and effectiveness of their expensive AI programmes. Financial analysts will stop awarding investment ratings based on ‘digital strategy’, and go back to looking at good old-fashioned […]
There may be people who still haven’t heard of Bitcoin, but there can’t be many and they must live a long way back from the road. From its beginnings as a niche of niches somewhere on the outer belt of the internet, this strange and next-to-impossible-to-understand mathematical construct has turned into a phenomenon that has […]
Trumpism remains grotesquely fascinating. And as the Trump “administration” cavorts and capers its way to what increasingly looks like an early termination, there is still a small window of time in which to reflect on what Trump is, and how this extraordinarily compelling and talentless individual has captured and destroyed the 45th American presidency. Into this […]
Making something from nothing is a plan that never works. Except when it does: today the owners of cryptocurrencies must feel like they have stumbled on the alchemist’s secret. Cryptocurrencies are the private, digital units of value that scoot invisibly around the internet and that some claim will eventually supplant the dollars and pounds that […]
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the strongman president of Turkey, scourge of liberals and secularists, promoter of conservative Islam and Islamism throughout the Middle East, baiter of the West, and jailer of journalists and judges, has been very lucky in his enemies. Piece by piece Erdogan has overturned a century’s worth of carefully constructed secularism in the […]
Over the Christmas week, CapX is republishing its favourite pieces from the past year. You can find the full list here. There is no standard definition of what makes a country viable as a country. What are the materials, the history, the culture, the institutions that allow a territory to grow into a something more […]
