James Gosnold
The Magic Zablet: A story about Cyber Safety for children, the next generation.
language
( May 4, 2016)
The Magic Zablet is a story about a girl who comes into the possession of an enchanted tablet computer.
Using this computer Millie Tyler visits the cyber world and encounters the kind of friends and foes, acquaintances and tricksters and trials and tribulations that people find each and every day on the internet.
If only Millie can better realise who really means well and what to stay away from; then she can get home …
Having worked in computer security for over fifteen years I’ve listened to and read much regarding the commonly held belief that people are the weakest link.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars and pounds are spent on state-of-the-art technologies designed to protect our computer systems, but these defences are often rendered useless when the human being is tricked or lured into doing something they shouldn’t.
But how do they know they shouldn’t have done what it is they did?
Many cybersecurity industry leaders are now looking at behavioural and cognitive psychology as a means of understanding why humans continue to adopt the role of the weakest link.
In addition, neuroscience demonstrates how neural pathways are formed in our brains that dictate decisions that we make and the way we behave in certain situations. These pathways are formed through experiences and new things we learn.
Many of the next generation of Internet users are currently five to ten years old. This generation is going to be absolutely embedded within a cyber-world, completely surrounded by Internet-connected devices in the home, at school, at work and everywhere else. It will be a way of life.
As the father of two wonderful girls, the eldest of whom falls into that age group and the other who will fairly shortly, I decided to fuse together two of the things I spend the most time doing and which are therefore my areas of expertise: computer security and reading children’s books. I wanted to write a book that was fun and enjoyable to read, but which called out behaviours and lessons that the target audience might be able to take with them into this future cyber-world.
I set out with an aim for the book to be half fantasy/fiction and half about cybersecurity. If I’m honest, I think the end result is more of the former as I had too much fun writing it, but that’s OK; there are already guides and training available out there, and education in general seems to be slowly developing its capability and strategies to teach this generation about computer security. But I believe children – and people in general – truly absorb lessons and learn best when they are thoroughly enjoying what they are doing. Therefore I hope children who read The Magic Zablet, either with or without their parents, enjoy it and, if they take just one lesson from it, just one thing that might make them think twice in a hazardous situation when using a computer; then it was worth it.
Using this computer Millie Tyler visits the cyber world and encounters the kind of friends and foes, acquaintances and tricksters and trials and tribulations that people find each and every day on the internet.
If only Millie can better realise who really means well and what to stay away from; then she can get home …
Having worked in computer security for over fifteen years I’ve listened to and read much regarding the commonly held belief that people are the weakest link.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars and pounds are spent on state-of-the-art technologies designed to protect our computer systems, but these defences are often rendered useless when the human being is tricked or lured into doing something they shouldn’t.
But how do they know they shouldn’t have done what it is they did?
Many cybersecurity industry leaders are now looking at behavioural and cognitive psychology as a means of understanding why humans continue to adopt the role of the weakest link.
In addition, neuroscience demonstrates how neural pathways are formed in our brains that dictate decisions that we make and the way we behave in certain situations. These pathways are formed through experiences and new things we learn.
Many of the next generation of Internet users are currently five to ten years old. This generation is going to be absolutely embedded within a cyber-world, completely surrounded by Internet-connected devices in the home, at school, at work and everywhere else. It will be a way of life.
As the father of two wonderful girls, the eldest of whom falls into that age group and the other who will fairly shortly, I decided to fuse together two of the things I spend the most time doing and which are therefore my areas of expertise: computer security and reading children’s books. I wanted to write a book that was fun and enjoyable to read, but which called out behaviours and lessons that the target audience might be able to take with them into this future cyber-world.
I set out with an aim for the book to be half fantasy/fiction and half about cybersecurity. If I’m honest, I think the end result is more of the former as I had too much fun writing it, but that’s OK; there are already guides and training available out there, and education in general seems to be slowly developing its capability and strategies to teach this generation about computer security. But I believe children – and people in general – truly absorb lessons and learn best when they are thoroughly enjoying what they are doing. Therefore I hope children who read The Magic Zablet, either with or without their parents, enjoy it and, if they take just one lesson from it, just one thing that might make them think twice in a hazardous situation when using a computer; then it was worth it.
- Pages
- 182