Coding Chats

An introduction to cybersecurity - from physical breaches to digital intrusions

Coding Chats

Show Notes

Coding Chats episode 49 - John Crickett and Kev Milne delve into the critical realm of cybersecurity, exploring its various facets from social engineering to the importance of penetration testing. They discuss the evolution of attacks, the role of AI, and the significance of mainframes in modern security. The conversation also highlights the career paths in cybersecurity and the necessity for continuous investment in security measures to protect digital assets.

Chapters 00:00 Understanding Cybersecurity 03:38 The Evolution of Attacks: Physical vs. Digital 06:18 Social Engineering: The Art of Deception 09:15 The Importance of Penetration Testing 12:02 Career Paths in Cybersecurity 14:49 The Diverse Landscape of Cybersecurity 17:56 The Necessity of Ongoing Security Measures 20:34 The Cost of Neglecting Cybersecurity 25:48 The Evolution of Wi-Fi Security 27:04 Mainframes: The Misunderstood Giants 28:15 Mainframe Security: Myths and Realities 30:02 The Challenge of Legacy Code 32:20 Balancing Security and Functionality 34:12 Defense in Depth: A Security Strategy 35:35 AI's Role in Cybersecurity 37:50 The Threat Landscape: Script Kiddies and Beyond 38:34 Training the Next Generation of Cybersecurity Experts 41:36 The Importance of Conferences in Cybersecurity

Kev's Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmilne/ Website where folks can obtain the Mainframe Offensive Security Tester course, download the Gibson Mainframe Simulator or purchase the Cyber Coach labs: https://offensivesec.org Try out some free labs Kev has created: https://cyber-coach-labs-bd010da0.base44.app/FreeLabs

John's Links: John's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncrickett/ John’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johncrickett John's Twitter: https://x.com/johncrickett John's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/johncrickett.bsky.social

Check out John's software engineering related newsletters: Coding Challenges: https://codingchallenges.substack.com/ which shares real-world project ideas that you can use to level up your coding skills.

Developing Skills: https://read.developingskills.fyi/ covering everything from system design to soft skills, helping them progress their career from junior to staff+ or for those that want onto a management track.

Takeaways Cybersecurity is essential for protecting digital assets. Social engineering remains a significant threat today. Red teaming involves advanced penetration testing techniques. Understanding networking is crucial for aspiring penetration testers. Mainframes are still vital for processing transactions. AI can both aid and complicate cybersecurity efforts. Continuous investment in cybersecurity is necessary for businesses. Penetration testing should be a standard practice for all companies. Security requires a layered defense approach. Conferences are valuable for staying updated in cybersecurity.

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Coding Chats Episode 83 - In this episode, VB from OpenAI’s developer experience team explains why he thinks plan mode is obsolete and how coding agents have shifted from step-by-step instructions to outcome-driven, long-running work. We cover how to write a good agents.md, why tests still matter when agents write the code, spec-driven development, and why cloud agents may be the future of dev tooling.

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Coding Chats Episode 82 - John talks with Dave Westgarth, head of delivery at a Databricks consultancy. Dave shares his path from a psychology degree and McDonald's into tech, and they discuss why the Scrum Master role is so misunderstood, how it differs from a delivery manager, and whether either needs to be technical.They also look at how AI is changing delivery work. Faster code just moves the bottleneck upstream, John argues there's no AI-specific skill you can't learn in a day, and engineering fundamentals are what make AI useful.

Oct 8, 2026

Coding Chats Episode 81 - Ben Howdle talks to John Crickett about being a first time CTO in a start-up. Ben, author of The First CTO, shares what changes when you move from building technology to leading a technical team: the pressure, the trade-offs, and the realization that writing code is only part of the job.Drawing on startup experience and lessons learned the hard way, Ben discusses how to balance quality against runway, manage people, and communicate technical decisions in terms that founders and other non-technical stakeholders can understand. He also explores why resourcefulness, resilience, and comfort with ambiguity matter so much—and why CTOs often spend more time selling ideas than they expect.Whether you’re stepping into your first CTO role or leading a technical team at an early-stage company, this conversation offers candid insights into the realities of technical leadership.

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Coding Chats Episode 80 - start-up advisor Alexander Berkovich shares his expertise on building successful start-ups, hiring strategies, CTO roles, and the importance of communication between technical and business teams. Discover practical tips for navigating the challenges of early-stage companies and how to align technical excellence with business goals.

May 21, 2026

Coding Chats Episode 79 - Richmond Alake, Director of AI Developer Experience at Oracle, joins John to discuss agent memory — how AI agents store, retrieve, and adapt to information. He argues that developers building memory on flat files are naively reinventing the database, and that once you factor in concurrency, security, and scalability, a proper database is inevitable. The conversation covers the full memory stack and how Oracle's AI database keeps embeddings and data together without shipping sensitive information to external providers.

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