AstrotalkUK

Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing

Online via Zoom. History of Britain in Space, Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 visit to London and Manchester, Covid-19 Facts and Fiction, and Cybersecurity

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C3844735 10:00 Tue July 28th Britain in Space. The story of Britain’s space programme. Single presentation. Online and Free register here.

Tim Peake. Credit ESA
  • Early rocketry Societies in England
  • Development of British Ballistic Missile & Nuclear Tests in Australia
  • Launch Satellite of Black Arrow & satellite Prospero from Woomera
  • British Astronauts Helen Sharman & Tim Peake
  • UK Spaceports
  • Virgin Galactic & Orbit
  • SSTL and Skylon

C3844737 10:00 Thu July 30th. The Day the Cosmonaut came to Manchester. Single presentation. Free and online. Register here.

This presentation is based on my 2011 book – Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester. It will cover

  • Gagarin’s achievement?
  • What was he like as an individual?
  • Why he came to Britain?
  • Where in London and Manchester he went and who he met?
  • Legacy of his visit?

C3844797 11:00 Fri July 31st Covid-19 Facts and Fiction. Single presentation. Online and free. register here.

Covid-19

With support from Dr James Anson, a microbiologist and medical director at Liverpool Clinical laboratories, we explore the truth behind the globally popular myths listed on the World Health Organisation website.

C3844740 Staying Safe online. Starts Mon 3rd August. Introduction to key concepts and principles in information security for home computer users. Four weekly sessions. Register here

17:15 Aug 3rd Week1: Cyber Security concepts – an introduction
17:15 Aug 6th Week2: Common Cyber Attacks
17:15 Aug 10 Week3: Secure home working
17:15 Aug 13
Week4: Online Tools and resources

Cybersecurity, History of Britain in Space and Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 visit to London and Manchester – Zoom Sessions. Free

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Starting on Monday 18th May 2020, I will be running three live sessions using Zoom for the Workers’ Educational Association. They are all free, introductory and have no prerequisites. They are organised by the WEA so applicants have to be based in the UK and at least 19 years old. To join/enrol see links and a brief description below.

11:15 -13:15 Monday 18th May 2020. Basic cybersecurity. C3844330 Staying Safe Online

  • Understand basic concepts of being secure online including Social Engineering, Phishing and multi-factor authentication.
  • Recognise the importance of basic security controls including automatic software updates, antivirus solution and good password management.  
  • Become familiar with and make use of authoritative online sources for cybersecurity information and tools

11:15 -13:15 Wednesday 20th May. The story of Britain’s space programme. C3844331 Britain in Space

  • Early rocketry Societies in England
  • Development of British Ballistic Missile & Nuclear Tests in Australia
  • Launch Satellite of Black Arrow & satellite Prospero from Woomera
  • British Astronauts Helen Sharman & Tim Peake
  • UK Spaceports
  • Virgin Galactic & Orbit
  • SSTL and Skylon

11:15 -13:15 Friday 22nd May 2020. Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester. C3844333 The Day the cosmonaut came to Manchester

This presentation is based on my 2011 book – Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester. It will cover

  • Gagarin’s achievement?
  • What was he like as an individual?
  • Why he came to Britain?
  • Where in London and Manchester he went and who he met?
  • Legacy of his visit?

Episode 74: Space Debris and Sustainable use of Space

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Dr Brian Weeded
Dr Brian Weeden

Space, as the author Douglas Adams said “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is”. After 6 decades of launching spacecraft, some orbits are now congested with space debris from collisions and poor end-of-life mission management. This has now become a serious hazard and even a danger to operational spacecraft. With plans to launch thousands of additional satellites, the Mega Constellations, in the coming decade, the need for some sort form of “traffic management” in orbit has never been greater.

The Secure World Foundation was established in 2002 by philanthropists Marcell Arsenault and his wife Cynda Collins Arsenault. It’s vision of “sustainable and peaceful uses of outer space contributing to global stability and benefits on Earth” is timely. In the last decade, the urgency to address the profound impact of climate change on Earth has finally been (almost) heeded,  the next decade will focus on space. The SWF is informing and leading this debate.

Dr Brian Weeden is the Director of Program Planning for Secure World Foundation. In the past, his responsibilities included intercontinental ballistic missile(IBM) operations, worked at Cheyenne Mountain and Vandenberg Airforce Base and specialised in Space Situational Awareness in the US Air Force and Strategic Command’s Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC).  In this episode, he talks about the key issues of space debris, preventing, militarisation of space, raising awareness of cyber threats to spacecraft, developing resources for the many nations that are now developing a space programme, fostering standards and policies for commercial uses of space.

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The SWF produces some very interesting and readable resources. A selection below

PDF – Weapons and Conflict in Space: History, Reality, and The Future. A really good primary from Brian Weeden and others

PDF – Handbook for new actors in space

PDF – Global Counterspace Capabilities: An Open Source Assessment

PDF – Tomorrow’s Battlefield: Emerging Areas of Military Competition – Space,

PDF – Weapons and Conflict in Space: History, Reality, and The Future

MP3 – Big Data, Big Space, Big Risk: Addressing Cyber Security Threats

PDF – Preparing For a “Normalized” Space Domain – Secure World Foundation

Cloud Computing Security Knowledge (CCSK) from the Cloud Security Alliance(CSA)

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A personal take on current cloud computing security certification.

If you have been working in the Information Security field and already hold the certification such as CISSP and CISM and now want to understand the security challenges associated with Cloud Computing which certification should you go for? The Cloud Computing Security Knowledge (CCSK) from the Cloud Security Alliance is arguably the leading market contender.

Why choose CCSK?

CCSK is not the only course focusing on Cloud Computing security. None of the others like CompTIA, CloudU and the numerous vendor specific courses share the scale of support from the global Cloud Computing industry. The course content and design is the product of input from numerous industry experts from organisations and corporations that are shaping the developing global Cloud Computing environment. Although still in its early days, CCSK has arguably established a clear lead in international recognition.

Best Approach?

Completing the CCSK test is not easy. Writing in the summer of 2011, Jim Reavis, executive director of the Cloud Security Alliance reported that Cloud Security Certification Not So Simple and shared a surprising statistics that only 53% had passed.

How easy or difficult the candidate finds the test depends on the unique circumstances of the candidate. If Cloud Computing security is your thing and are looking for an industry recognised and respected qualification, CCSK could be for you. It is not for absolute beginners. If you have a few years of InfoSec experience and are able to self study, here are some steps in sequences which should help.

  1. Use the social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn groups, blogs and podcasts) to keep abreast of Cloud Security Issues.
  2. Consciously interact with the cloud. Make regular use of one or more of the following:  Skydrive, Icloud, Dropbox, Google Apps or any of the growing list of similar applications.
  3. Setup free accounts on e.g. Amazon Web Services  and use its Simply Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2).  If like me you are a fan of open source try cloudstack instead of Amazon.
  4. A high quality and free cloud security course has been developed by a Ben Kepes, an internationally recognised commentator on Cloud Computing (who also happens to be a farmer from South Island in New Zealand) called CloudU.  Although CloudU is made available under the auspices of Rackspace, it is a vendor neutral Cloud Computing course focusing on security. To attain the certificate you have series of ten lessons/white papers, each followed by a quiz with ten questions followed by a final quiz with fifty questions randomly chosen from all of the ten lessons.  The pass mark is 80% in every case and should you not be successful – simply try again.
  5. Preparation for the CCSK course depends so much on your experience, so there can be no single approach.  Familiarity with the contents of the two key documents and some of the others listed above is crucial. Depending on your personal history you will find the content of some domains so obvious that you will choose to skip them.

Download the full paper in pdf here.