in mobile electronic devices." We've got to give credit to the many companies and organisations that have been working over the past 20 years to improve security. The Olympics is a huge machine, and all aspects right down to the timing of events on particular days have been under scrutiny for many years. But of course new technology brings new issues and new clever ways of causing damage. Genuine threats are more mundane. One of the guys at BT [the official communications services partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games] said about Usain Bolt's gold medal winning performance in Beijing: "Think about how you'd feel if the network manager came up to you afterwards and had to explain why the network had gone down during those ten seconds." Although somebody could do something very dramatic to draw attention to themselves, if a mundane but catastrophic failure occurs with the electronic systems, we would be a laughing stock as a country and they wouldn't let us host anything for many years. BB: With each Olympiad more and more is dependent on those electronic systems. "The first real electronic attacks against the Games can be traced back to 1980, and although it's an increasing problem, the threat has been very well managed." D-EN: It is, but these systems also get more and more robust, and people have been designing systems for the Olympic Games for 20 years. However you have to recognise they are definitely a target because it's so