(Booted up
15 January 1956
– Logged off 12 January 2015)
Steve Gold, who died from complications arising from a heart
operation on January 12th 2015, was an internationally renowned
expert and commentator in the field of IT crime and cyber
terrorism.
This stemmed from his 11 years of experience, which
culminated in his role as a senior internal auditor/fraud
investigator in the National Health Service.
As a journalist Steve has been specialising in communications as
well as IT security for approaching three decades.
He has written on a freelance basis for a number of titles,
including Accountancy Age, Computer Weekly, the Daily Telegraph,
the Daily Mail, Euromedia, the Guardian (IT and healthcare
sections), IPTV, Micro Decision, Mobile News, Personal Computer
World, The Review (Gemalto's house business magazine) and The
Times.
He assisted and co-wrote later editions of the Hackers Handbook,
alongside Professor Peter Sommer, which was published in six
editions between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. It was a
seminal communications book of its time and sold in excess of
100,000 copies.
Steve started his full-time journalistic career as a staff
writer on Microscope in 1986 and helped launch PC Dealer, a
trade computer reseller magazine the following year, where he
rapidly moved from technical editor to editor in the space of
four years.
He left the title to pursue a freelance career in 1991, helping
Paul Robinson to found SC Magazine, the world's first dedicated
IT security news publication in 1994, as freelance news editor,
a position he held until Paul sold the title to Haymarket
Publishing in 2004.
In parallel with this, he helped a fellow team of US, Canadian
and Australian writers launch and evolve a pioneering IT
newswire - Newsbytes News Network - in the US in 1985. He and
his colleagues later went on to sell the highly successful
newswire to the Washington Post in the early 2000s.
In 2004 he joined Infosecurity Magazine as a contributor and
soon became technical editor, assisting a succession of editors
over a period of seven years in evolving both the print and
online publications as the IT security industry developed and
matured.
At his death, he was group editor for LGN Media, which publishes
Cloud Computing World, Lawtech Magazine and Netcomms Europe. He
also contributed to the news pages of SC Magazine on a regular
basis.
"There has been a disturbance in the IT force"
* Will anyone with material that they feel might be suitable
for a "memorial" site please send it to
sg1@silentmodems.com
** Update 17:00 13JAN15:-
We have been contacted by a number of Steve's many colleagues
and friends with a variety of insights and snippets. Keep them
coming please. We will also be culling from the numerous FB
threads covering today's sad news..
Excellent Obit by SC Magazine and
The Register
CRN has joined the list of
tributes
A
blog entry by Eskenszi expressed
appreciation from the PR world.
And
another
by his partner in cyber crime fighting at ContraRISK, Steve
Mansfield-Devine.
Partha Goswami
in
LawTech
I can only echo
the comments made by others who knew him better than I, that he
was kind, had a great sense of humour and fun, and had great
stories to tell. He will be missed and it is such a sad loss.
...Richard Williams
Just being
with Steve was always entertaining and he invariably had a fund
of industry anecdotes to share. He also seemed to know the IT
future way before it happened. One of the great fun people in
the industry and my thoughts go out to his family.
...Richard Jones
He inspired me to run my own
(irregular) comment and news pages on Prestel; I left home and
moved to London to rent a room from his friend of his (and the
standby Micromouse,) We spoke many times, although not as much
as we should have over the last few years. Steve, you were a
great chap, a good friend, an amazing writer, and you will be
sorely missed.
...Rob O'Donnell
In the early 80s Steve Gold was a founder
member of the Database Publications editorial team such was his
broad knowledge of the microcomputer market that his
contributions were not limited to single machine but spread
across the whole spectrum of their computer specific publications. He played a
major part in the first telecoms publication launched in the UK
Telelink in addition he assisted in the development of Microlink
and a precursor to the email systems we all take for granted
today.
He gave many presentations at a large
number of computer exhibitions when he was not at work in the
exhibition theatre he could often be found giving holding forth
in the bar.
" In those early days it often was a case
of the blind leading the blind however Steve seem to have 2020
vision and it came to predicting developments within the
microcomputer market"
...Peter Brameld
Open email to John Whittingdale MP,
Chair of the House of Commons Department
of Culture Media and Sport Committee - the committee that
oversees the internet.