In drafting a new hyperglossary entry for the Hugging Face incident today, I'm quietly contemplating the wider, more profound and far more sinister implications as the nightmare unfolds before us. So far, amid the chaotic clutter of information hastily released by those directly involved and commentary by others, the focus has been on the evident power of agentic AI to chain-together automated compromises or hacks at machine speed - hence the need to patch systems ASAP. Well

Recently, someone kindly pointed me at NBSIR 76-1041 “Security Analysis and Enhancements of Computer Operating Systems”, a fifty-year old standard from the US Department of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards (which became NIST in 1988). It was produced by the Research In Secured Operating Systems project at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, home of the US nuclear weapons program since 1952. Parsing the glossary section revealed several alternative definitions for terms alrea

Language is a constantly-evolving social construct: terms, phrasing, meanings, interpretations and implications all vary over time. Furthermore, they vary between individuals or communities and contexts. This morning, for instance, I have added "government security" to my working version of the Cybersecurity Hyperglossary, a term that can refer either to government-issued bonds or to the protective status of government - two markedly different meanings. I also defined "neol

What is an "information system" to you? The newly-updated ISO 9000:2026 defines it as "Network of communication channels used within an organization" - an unusual and intriguing perspective, presumably expressed that way to suit the specific context of the Quality Assurance standards? Hmmmmm, I'm not sure. That (to me) rather curious definition of "information system" has caught my beady eye and left me quietly pondering, for days so far. The ISO 9000 definition set me wond