An Information Security Place

Cleanflicks has lost to the movie industry in this case. Basically, they can no longer edit the bad stuff out of movies and redistribute. What surprised me to a degree was the the movie industry did not use DMCA as an argument. Go here to see the likely reason why.

A few weeks back, I posted about what a security admin / manager should do to sell security to the execs and the general user populace at his or her organization. It contained no technical advice. Basically, it said to be social and was meant to be a first step in getting the people to […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

I know many of you were waited with baited breath for my installment 2 of 2 of data classification, but I have decided to delay that for a while.  I want to look into some other things to write about, and since the announcement of the EMC acquisition of RSA yesterday, I am looking closely at […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Looks like they found the missing VA laptop and hard drive.  They also said that the “initial FBI forensics tests indicate the data on the laptop and disk has not been improperly accessed.”   OK, everything is better.  I am not at all worried now.  Vets, you can quit worrying. Uh huh… Vet

This is absolutely hilarious.  The Onion cracks me up.

I received my digital version of InfoSecurity magazine this morning, and it got me thinking (it hurt because I usually don’t start thinking until the afternoon). The article was about Australian computer crime statistics and how their computer crime was about money more and more and less and less about bragging rights. They made this […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Amen

Here is episode 4 of my podcast. Just as fair warning, I tried adding some music to the podcast in the beginning and the end. I think it is a bit loud in the beginning, but I was having trouble getting the volumes right. Basically, turn down your speakers, headphones, whatever in the beginning and […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

I recently accepted an offer at Conputerworld to be a weekly security blogger. I am not leaving my personal blog. In fact, Computerworld is very receptive to me having a personal blog and linking between the two to create more traffic. That will allow me to keep my personal brand and still have a more […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

“Bill Gates’ drawdown of daily influence at Microsoft, the company he co-founded more than 25 years ago, won’t alter its course on security, analysts said Friday.” This is from this story at Searchsecurity.com. Ummmm, ok. Did anyone think it would? Microsoft is actually being taken halfway seriously on security for the first time ever. Why […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Since I love the USA Network show “The 4400“, I keep wanting to make a joke here. But I won’t, since everything I can think of sounds pretty weak. Anyway, Oregon had a government worker surfing porn and got a trojan. Now you have up to 2,200 Oregon taxpayers information compromised. Seems like typical stuff. […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Martin McKeay has posted that phone tapping is not as effective as human intelligence, and I have agreed. But I also pointed out how difficult it is to get intelligence from traditional tactics with this type of enemy. It is not the same as gathering intelligence from communist governments, etc. I talked about this some […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

I often find that my best blogging is done as comments to other blogs. Is it wrong to take your own comments from other blogs and post them on your blog? They are my words, and I get most of my inspiration from other people’s writings (yes, I do have original thoughts – sometimes I […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Martin McKeay posted an interesting take on the NSA stuff. He argues that HUMINT (human intelligence) is a much more effective tool for stopping terrorists. I agree with Martin on this point, but I think the premise is a tad bit naïve. I have to ask if he has considered how difficult it is to […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

Alan Shimel posted about my short blurb on the FCC getting a positive ruling on the issue of requiring broadband providers and IP telephone service providers to comply with US wiretap laws. Since he took issue with my post (dang him!), I felt the need to clarify. Here is my response to his post: Alan, […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…