From Sifted:
From the outside, the headquarters of GCHQ — the UK’s cybersecurity and intelligence agency — looks exactly how you’d expect: barbed wire fences and security checkpoints.
But once you’re inside, things start to feel a lot less James Bond and more like a giant shopping centre.
There’s a Greggs bakery (the baristas have security clearances) and, next to it, the UK’s largest top-secret garden, complete with stripey beach-style deckchairs.
GCHQ is on a mission — and has been since the Snowden leaks in 2013-14 revealed that it had been harvesting information of people the world over — to convey an increasingly open image; to try and shift its public perception away from secretive agency and towards ally of the public in the fight against cybercrime.
A key part of that: partnering with young startups and inviting them in for mentoring.
“The halo effect”The part of GCHQ that runs the startup programme is the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). It opened a couple of years after the Snowden leaks and works on computer security threats.Five companies have just joined this year’s programme, the focus of which is on ransomware. It’s a fitting theme — GCHQ’s director warned last week that countries opposing Russia will see an increase in cyber attacks after the invasion of Ukraine.
....MUCH MORE
Is it a doughnut or is it a panopticon?
HT: Izabella Kaminska on Twitter where she now seems to be bragging about paramilitary operations in Hyde Park.
