Even better was the second year of the class (this lecturer lead the security side of the CS degrees). I took it in autumn 2013, just after the summer of Snowden. The class was just week after week of "I TOLD YOU SO! Look at these leaks! Look at these NSA details! Look at what we happens if we take this bit and stick it into LinkedIn and Google Street View and see where the developer of XKeyscore lives! Look at where this undersea cable goes, isn't that a bit close to Diego Garcia?! Look at this submarine and the bit carved out for an undersea cable splicing facility! I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS ALL FOR YEARS!"
As much as it sounded like the rantings of a tin-foil hat wearing madman, he was in fact quite accurate through a combination of having worked in government in computer security at a fairly high level for a while, and having deep technical knowledge about what was possible.
I miss his lectures, they were excellent, but I hear he's still going strong scaring freshers and running the on-campus teaching union, which is nice to hear.
I love playing BoE (back of envelope) Gedanken Experiments. Splicing a undersea cable or recording and analyzing all the SMS traffic in the world seems a little more tractable after you do the math.
As much as it sounded like the rantings of a tin-foil hat wearing madman, he was in fact quite accurate through a combination of having worked in government in computer security at a fairly high level for a while, and having deep technical knowledge about what was possible.
I miss his lectures, they were excellent, but I hear he's still going strong scaring freshers and running the on-campus teaching union, which is nice to hear.