I mentioned back in January that XX1 has gotten her driver’s permit and was in command of a two ton weapon on a regular basis. Driving with her has been, uh, interesting. I try to give her an opportunity to drive where possible, like when I have to get her to school in the morning. She can navigate the couple of miles through traffic on the way to her school. And she drives to/from her tutor as well, but that’s still largely local travel.

Though I do have to say, I don’t feel like I need to run as frequently because the 15-20 minutes in the car with her gets my heart racing for the entire trip. Obviously having been driving for over 30 years, I see things as they develop in front of me. She doesn’t. So I have to squelch the urge to say, “Watch that dude over there, he’s about to change lanes.” Or “That’s a red light and that means stop, right?” Or “Hit the f***ing brakes before you hit that car, building, child, etc.”

She only leveled a garbage bin once. Which caused more damage to her ego and confidence than it did to the car or the bin. So overall, it’s going well. But I’m not taking chances, and I want her to really understand how to drive. So I signed her up for the B.R.A.K.E.S. teen defensive driver training. Due to some scheduling complexity taking the class in New Jersey worked better. So we flew up last weekend and we stayed with my Dad on the Jersey Shore.

First, a little digression. When you have 3 kids with crazy schedules, you don’t get a lot of individual time with any of the kids. So it was great to spend the weekend with her and I definitely got a much greater appreciation for the person she is in this moment. As we were sitting on the plane, I glanced over and she seemed so big. So grown up. I got a little choked up as I had to acknowledge how quickly time is passing. I remember bringing her home from the hospital like it was yesterday. Then we were at a family event on Saturday night with some cousins by marriage that she doesn’t know very well. To see her interact with these folks and hold a conversation and be funny and engaging and cute. I was overwhelmed with pride watching her bring light to the situation.

But then it was back to business. First thing Sunday morning we went over the race track. They did the obligatory video to scare the crap out of the kids. The story of B.R.A.K.E.S. is a heartbreaking one. Doug Herbert, who is a professional drag racer, started the program after losing his two sons in a teen driving accident. So he travels around the country with a band of other professional drivers teaching teens how to handle the vehicle.

BRAKES car

The statistics are shocking. Upwards of 80% of teens will get into an accident in their first 3 years of driving. 5,000 teen driving fatalities each year. And these kids get very little training before they are put behind the wheel to figure it out.

The drills for the kids are very cool. They practice accident avoidance and steering while panic breaking. They do a skid exercise to understand how to keep the car under control during a spin. They do slalom work to make sure they understand how far they can push the car and still maintain control. The parents even got to do some of the drills (which was very cool.) They also do a distracted driving drill, where the instructor messes with the kids to show them how dangerous it is to text and play with the radio when driving. They also have these very cool drunk goggles, which simulates your vision when under the influence. Hard to see how any of the kids would get behind the wheel drunk after trying to drive with those goggles on.

I can’t speak highly enough about the program. I let XX1 drive back from the airport and she navigated downtown Atlanta, a high traffic situation on a 7 lane highway, and was able to avoid an accident when a knucklehead slowed down to 30 on the highway trying to switch lanes to make an exit. Her comfort behind the wheel was totally different and her skills were clearly advanced in just the four hours. If you have an opportunity to attend with your teen, don’t think about it. Just do it. Here is the schedule of upcoming trainings, and you should sign up for their mailing list.

The training works. They have run 18,000 teens through the program and not one of them has had a fatal accident. That’s incredible. And important. Especially given my teen will be driving without me (or her Mom) in the car in 6 months. I want to tip the odds in my favor as much as I can.

–Mike

Security is changing. So is Securosis. Check out Rich’s post on how we are evolving our business.

We’ve published this year’s Securosis Guide to the RSA Conference. It’s our take on the key themes of this year’s conference (which is really a proxy for the industry), as well as deep dives on cloud security, threat protection, and data security. And there is a ton of meme goodness… Check out the blog post or download the guide directly (PDF).

The fine folks at the RSA Conference posted the talk Jennifer Minella and I did on mindfulness at the 2014 conference. You can check it out on YouTube. Take an hour. Your emails, alerts, and Twitter timeline will be there when you get back.

Securosis Firestarter

Have you checked out our video podcast? Rich, Adrian, and Mike get into a Google Hangout and… hang out. We talk a bit about security as well. We try to keep these to 15 minutes or less, and usually fail.

Heavy Research

We are back at work on a variety of blog series, so here is a list of the research currently underway. Remember you can get our Heavy Feed via RSS, with our content in all its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too.

Maximizing WAF Value

Resilient Cloud Network Architectures

Shadow Devices

Building a Vendor IT Risk Management Program

SIEM Kung Fu

Recently Published Papers

Incite 4 U

  1. Blockchain demystified: So I’m having dinner with a very old friend of mine, who is one of the big wheels at a very big research firm. We started together decades ago as networking folks, but I went towards security and he went towards managing huge teams of people. One of his coverage areas now is industry research and specifically financials. So these new currencies, including BitCoin is near and dear to his heart. But he didn’t call it BitCoin, he said blockchain. I had no idea what he was talking about, but our pals at NetworkWorld put up a primer on blockchain. Regardless of whether it was a loudmouth Australian that came up with the technology, it’s going to become a factor in how transactions are validated over time and large tech companies and banks are playing around with it. Being security folks and tasked at some point with protecting things, we probably need to at least understand how it works. – MR
  2. Luck Meets Perseverance: I’m not the first to say that being too early to a market and being dead wrong are virtually indistinguishable, certainly when the final tally is counted. When disruptive technologies emerge during tough economic times, visionaries teeter on oblivion. The recent Farnum Street post on The Creation of IBM’s Competitive Advantage has nothing to do with security. However, it is an excellent illustration of what it takes to succeed; a strong vision of the future, a drive to innovate, the fortitude do what others think is crazy, and enough cash to weather the storm for a while. If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s definitely worth your time. But this storyline remains relevant as dozens of product vendors struggle to sell the future of security to firms that are just trying to get through the day. We see many security startups with the first three attributes. That much is common. We don’t see the fourth attribute much at all, which is cash. Most innovation in technology is funded by VCs with the patience of a 5 year old who’s just eaten a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. IBM was lucky enough to sell off ineffectual businesses to build a war chest, then focused their time, effort and cash on the long term goal. That recipe never goes out of style, but with the common early stage technology funding model, we witness lots of very talented people crash and burn. – AL
  3. Internet Kings Do Research: With ever increasing profits expected by companies (yes, it’s that free market thing), it seems that there isn’t a lot of commercially funded basic research. You know, like the kind Microsoft did back in the day? Stuff that didn’t necessarily help sell more Windows, rather helped to push forward the use of technology. MSFT had the profits to support that. And now it seems Google and Facebook do too. In fact, rock star researchers are moving from one to the other to drive these basic research initiatives. Most recently, Regina Dugan who spent time at DARPA working on military research before heading off to Google to lead their advanced tech lab, now is with Facebook to build a similar team. I think it’s awesome and I’m glad that every time I like something on Facebook it contributes to funding research that may change the world at some point. – MR
  4. EU Data Protection Reform: The EU has approved a new data protection standard set to reform the standing 1995 rules. There are several documents published so it will take time for a thorough analysis, but there are a couple of things to like here. The right to be forgotten, the right to know when your data has been hacked, and the need for consent to process your data are excellent ideas conceptually. With storage virtually limitless, companies and governments have no incentive to forget you or take precautions on your behalf unless pushed. So this is a step in the right direction. But as usual, I’m skeptical at most of the proposal: There is no provision to extend protection to 3rd parties that access citizen’s data. There is no way to opt out of having your data shared amongst third parties or transparency when law enforcement goes rummaging around in your junk, which should be treated no differently than “being hacked”. In fact the EU seemed to go overboard to accommodate “law enforcement”, aka government access, without much oversight. Different day, same story. And without a way for someone to verify you’ve actually been ‘forgotten’ – and not just backed up to different servers – the clause is pretty much worthless. It’s a good next step, and hopefully we won’t wait another 20+ years for an update. – AL
  5. Shyster pen testers: It’s inevitable. There aren’t enough security folks, and services shops are expected to grow. So what do you do? The bait and switch, of course. Have a high level, well regarded tester and then have a bunch of knucklehead kids do the actual test. Then write some total crap report and cash the check. As the Chief Monkey details, there are a lot of shysters in the business now. This is problematic for a lot of reasons. First, a customer may actually listen to the hogwash written in the findings report. You’ve got to check out the post to see some of the beauty’s in there. It also makes it hard for reputable firms, who won’t start dropping the price when a customer challenges their quals. But we have’t repealed the laws of economics, so as long as there is a gap in the number of folks to do the job, then snake oil salespeople will be the reality in the business. – MR
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