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Friday Summary: August 12, 2011

Rich August 11, 2011 No Comments

Believe it or not, I’m not the biggest fan of travel. Oh, I used to be, maybe 10+ years ago when I was just starting to travel as part of my career. Being in your 20’s and getting paid to literally circle the globe isn’t all bad… especially when you’re single. But the truth is I got tired of travel long before I started a family. Traveling every now and then is a wonderful experience that can change the lens with which you view the world. Hitting the airport once or twice a month, on the other hand, does little more than disrupt your life (and I know plenty of people who travel even more than that). I miss being on a routine, and I really miss the strong local social bonds I used to have. Travel killed my chances of moving up to my next Black Belt. It wrecked my fitness consistency (yes, I still work out a ton, but not so much with other people, and bad hotel gyms and strange roads aren’t great for the program). It killed my participation in mountain rescue, although for a couple years it did let me ski patrol in Colorado while I lived in Phoenix. That didn’t suck. It mostly hurt my relationships with my “old” friends because I just wasn’t around much. Folks I basically grew up with, as we all congregated in Boulder (mostly) as we started college, and learned to rely on each other as surrogate family. Complete with Crazy Uncle Wade at the head of the Thanksgiving table (Wade is now in the Marshall Islands, after working as an electrician in Antarctica). On the other hand, I now have a social group that’s scattered across the country and the world. I see some of these people more than my local friends here in Phoenix, and we’re often on expense accounts without a curfew. I was sick last week at Black Hat and DefCon, but managed to spend a little quality time with folks like Chris Hoff, Alex Hutton, Martin and Zach from the Podcast, two good friends from Gartner days, Jeremiah, Ryan, Mike A., and the rest of the BJJ crew, and even some of these people’s spouses. Plus so many more that going to DefCon (in particular) now feels more like a week of summer camp than a work conference. With beer. And parties in the biggest clubs in Vegas (open bar). And… well, we’re not 13 anymore. What’s amazing and awesome is almost none of us work together, and most of us don’t live anywhere near each other. And it isn’t unusual to roll into some random city (for a client gig, not even a conference), and find out someone else is also in town. We live strange lives as digital nomads who combine social media and frequent flyer miles to create a personal network that’s different from seeing the same faces every weekend at the Rio (Boulder thing), but likely as strong. I don’t think this could exist without both the technical and physical components. I still miss the consistency of life with a low-travel job. But in exchange I have the kinds of adventures other people write books about, and get to share them with a group of people I consider close friends, even if I can’t invite them over for a BBQ without enough time to get through their personal gropings at the airport. -Rich On to the Summary: Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Adrian quoted on tokenization. Favorite Securosis Posts Mike Rothman: NoSQL and No Security. Nothing like poking a big security hole in an over-hyped market. Who needs DB security anyway? Adrian Lane: Data Security Lifecycle 2.0: Functions, Actors, and Controls. Why? Because the standard data security lifecycle fails when applied to cloud services – you need to take location and access into account. Our goal is to make the model simple to use, so please give us your feedback. David Mortman: Use THEIR data to tell YOUR story. Rich: Words matter: You stop attacks, not breaches. I know, I know, we should stop thinking marketing will ever change. But everyone has their windmill. Other Securosis Posts Say Hello to Chip and Pin. Incite 8/10/2011: Back to the Future. Introducing the Data Security Lifecycle 2.0. Data Security Lifecycle 2.0 and the Cloud: Locations and Access. Fact-Based Network Security: Defining ‘Risk’. Incite 8/3/2011: The Kids Are Our Future. Words matter: You stop attacks, not breaches. Cloud Security Training: August 16-18, Washington DC. Security has always been a BigData problem. New Blog Series: Fact-Based Network Security: Metrics and the Pursuit of Prioritization. Favorite Outside Posts Mike Rothman: Marcus Ranum: Dangerous Cyberwar Rhetoric. Ranum can pontificate with the best of them, but this perspective is dead on. Attribution is harder, and even more important, as the lines between “cyber” and physical war inevitably blur. Adrian Lane: Comments about the $200,000 BlueHat prize. ErrataRob clarifies the security bounty program. David Mortman: Metricon 6 Wrap-Up. Chris Pepper: Badass of the Week: Abram A. Heller. Totally badass without being an ass. Rich: Sunset of a Blog. Glenn is a good friend and one of the people who helped launch my writing career, especially on the Mac side (via TidBITS). This post shows the difference between a blogger and a writer. Research Reports and Presentations Security Benchmarking: Going Beyond Metrics. Understanding and Selecting a File Activity Monitoring Solution. Database Activity Monitoring: Software vs. Appliance. React Faster and Better: New Approaches for Advanced Incident Response. Measuring and Optimizing Database Security Operations (DBQuant). Network Security in the Age of Any Computing. The Securosis 2010 Data Security Survey. Monitoring up the Stack: Adding Value to SIEM. Top News and Posts Microsoft Security Program & Vulnerability Data Now Available. Did Airport Scanners Give Boston TSA Agents Cancer? TSA says that’s BS. Survey Finds Smartphone Apps Store Too Much Personal Data. What? No way! 22 Reasons to Patch Your Windows PC via Krebs. Cameron Threatens To Shut Down UK Social Networks.

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