StillSecure, After All These Years

The day the music died

Authors update: It really was a day the music died. Shortly after posting this article word came that Michael Jackson was rushed to the hospital in LA.  Some time after that there are numerous reports and it it appears confirmed that he did in fact die today as well.  While his adult life was bizarre to say the least, you can't help feeling that his life over the last decade or more was tortured.  But whatever you want to say about the man, you cannot deny his musical talent. What a shame!

I was really saddened to read about Farrah Fawcett passing away today. Though we all new it was coming, the reality of it made me think back to my teen age years.  My family had finished our basement and my brother Kevn and I moved down there. We each had our own room. I was about 15 or so and thought it was so cool. I promptly set up a stereo, a huge record (yes vinyl ones) collection, a fish tank and these three posters:

They defined beautiful women for me.  In fact in many ways they still do. A little part of the teen ager still in me died with Farrah Fawcett today. My sympathies to her family and loved ones.  I guess now she truly is an angel.

Sign of the times

If you have any doubt that the gold rush is on for the millions, if not billions the US Government is going to spend on cybersecurity check out this commercial from Lockheed Martin I saw on CNN today:

Let the race begin!

Its a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world except for Lola

L-O-L-A, Lola, tastes just like cherry cola!  Lola by the Kinks, one of my favorite old rock songs. It wasn’t till much later that I realized what it was really about. But I couldn’t help but thinking of that line reading today’s headlines:

1. GM declares bankruptcy with the US Government to give them up to another 30 billion dollars and own 60% of the new company. Welcome to the car business President Obama. How did they go from worlds largest carmaker to bust in just a few short years? What are other countries going to think about what is in essence the nationalization of GM. How much creditability will we have when we talk about foreign governments protectionism of their car companies?

2. Citibank removed from Dow 30 to be replaced by Travelers. Wait, didn’t Citi buy Travelers? Yes they did, but it seems they choked on it and spun it off and now they will replace Citi on the Dow. Also joining the Dow is Cisco, taking GM’s spot. So finally the the big three in tech – Microsoft, Intel and Cisco are all on the Dow.

3. N Korea readying intercontinental missile, could reach US territory. How long is the world going to put up with these hoodlums? I heard an interesting fact last night that the average N Korean is now 3 to 6 inches shorter than the average S Korean due to poor nourishment.  If China doesn’t keep the dog on the leash lets just put it down.

4. Cybersecurity is now a national priority. Wasn’t it one already? Hey I am glad to see the President shine the light on cybersecurity. But before we get ourselves too wound up, shouldn’t we wait to see how this plays out. I have seen too many cybersecurity chiefs come in and be ground up by the DC machine.  I think many of us are flattered by the attention, but lets see how it translates.

5. Abortion doc shot down in church! Dr George Tiller one of the few doctors performing late term abortions was shot and killed in Church yesterday. He was performing as an usher and in front of his wife in the choir.  Whether you agree with the politics of abortion or not, who gives anyone the right to take the law in their hands like that. They call it the pro-life movement?

A shook up world indeed!

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Shimel’s Inciteful Thursday

So despite his promises to the contrary, my bud Mike Rothman has been a blogging MIA pretty much since RSA. Hey I am sure he has a good reason, like some journey for self-awareness or something that is keeping him away.  Not even a Social Security Blogger award could get his juices flowing again.  So in Mike’s absence I am going to do another in my incite series with a bunch of short stories and even shorter commentaries.

Truth be told, I had too many things to write about today, so I blamed it on Rothman!

Have a great day.

1. InfoExpress does a press release on managed NAC – Last night I banged on InfoExpress for claiming a managed NAC service as reported by Tim Greene. It just didn’t sound like a managed service to me.  Well not sure if Tim jumped the gun or not, but today IE put out a press release on their service (though they still have nothing about it on the web site). To be fair the press release talks about more management of NAC than Tim’s article did.  But here is a bit of advice for the InfoExpress PR team: If you are going to have customer quotes in a press release, it may be worthwhile giving their name and title.  Just having quotes attributed to anonymous customers is a bit unbelievable. Something I would expect from NAC used car salesmen.

2. Mystery Virus plagues FBI and US Marshalls – It seems that a mystery computer virus (no not swine related) has hit both the non-classified FBI network and the US Marshalls network.  The FBI had to take down their network from the Internet, but it has now been reconnected. The US Marshalls service reportedly had 140 machines hit with the virus. They had to be taken down and are being disinfected as you read this.  I don’t have any more information on this, but there are rumors of a one-armed man being seen in the vicinity.  Where is Tommy Lee Jones when you need him?

3. Microsoft puts the heat on security vendors – Looks like my friend Charlotte Dunlap has herself a regular gig over at Forbes writing an infosecurity column sponsored by Juniper.  This time Charlotte writes about Microsoft rolling out a hosted email security solution as part of Stirling-Forefront. Charlotte is right on when she says that Microsoft clearly has Symantec and McAfee in their sights with Forefront.  I have written about this before as well. Go ahead and make fun all you want, Microsoft is serious about this and will keep at it till they get it right.  Of course I love the fact that they are partnering with forward looking security vendors (like StillSecure) and think there is a real opportunity to shake up the security world here.

4. How much work can you do on an iPhone?  Earlier this week I wrote about an iPhone being a Prius to Blackberry being Pinto (hey not my words, but some other author). In continuation of that story, Galen Gruman writes about using an iPhone instead of a laptop for a few weeks. I don’t know but I find it near impossible to write more than a sentence or two with my iPhone. Maybe my fingers are too fat or I just don’t have good hand to eye coordination, but I find it painful compared to my old HTC Windows Mobile phone to type longer then that.

Anyway, that is a wrap on this incite.  Good day to you Mike Rothman, no matter where you are!

Would taxing tech companies foreign income kill the goose that laid the golden egg or just close an unfair loophole?

No sooner had President Obama announced plans to close down some loopholes that allow US based companies to defer and in some cases not pay taxes on income earned out of country, a group calling themselves the Silicon Valley Leadership Group voiced their objections. They claim that many of the largest tech companies like HP, Google, Microsoft and Cisco earn half or more of their money from foreign markets.  They pay the usually lower taxes in those countries and as long as they don’t take that money back in the US, they should not have to pay the higher US tax rate on it.  The group further argues that if these poor tech companies had to pay that tax, it would make them uncompetitive and wind up costing jobs. 

I think they talk out of both sides of their mouth.  I think the present system of letting them avoid taxes by not bringing dollars into the country incents them to keep their money and their employees and spending out of the country!  These countries often get their start by building a US presence. Yes they need to compete internationally but it is high time that we close the loopholes that allow these companies with billions in profit from paying their fair share.  As it is now if a company pays foreign income tax, they can take that as a deduction even though they do not take that income or revenue into the US and pay taxes on it.  Additionally they can deduct from their US taxes money they use to build foreign operations, while again not paying taxes on the money they earn from those operations.

Everyone wants our economy to do better and have more jobs here.  That means we need to put the incentives in place for these companies to hire Americans in America. It is very hard to feel sorry for these tech companies crying with two loaves of bread under their arms.

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Will Wall Street's loss be tech's gain?

Cover of Wall Street [Blu-ray]

Going back to the time I was in school, it seemed like the best and brightest aspired to a career on Wall Street. Yes you could go to medical school or law school, but many very bright and ambitious kids wanted to to go work for Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or some other such Wall Street house.  Except for a brief period during the dot com bubble when the lure of stock options pulled some of them away our best and brightest were drawn to the bright lights and big city. President Obama says that this is going to change.

In a report on abcnews.com highlighting a NY Times interview, President Obama says that Wall Street is going to play a less dominant role in our economy and our lives going forward.  This will be due to more government regulation and less risk taking. This will mean less chance of excessive profits, so less extravagant bonuses. As a result, Obama says the some of the talent that has been attracted to Wall Street will seek other avenues like computers and engineering.

I think this would be a great thing for both the tech industry and our country.  However I have heard this before. When the cycle picks up will the call of Gordon Gecko, “greed is good, greed is what made America great” once again be a siren song for our best and brightest?  I guess we will find out soon enough.

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Pictures worth a thousand words

This past weekend I was pointed to an article which made me sad and made me reminisce.  The assets of Polaroid which went bankrupt in December were sold to a pair of companies who specialize in picking up bankrupt name brands such as The Sharper Image, Linens-n-Things and Bombay. But for me the loss of Polaroid hit hard. Being maybe a little older then most of you, I remember before there were digital cameras. I even remember before there was one hour photo processing. You had to bring your film into a store who sent it out and in about 3 to 5 days maybe you could come pick up your pictures.  Not exactly instant gratification.  Unless of course you were lucky enough to have a Polaroid. I am not talking about the SX70 models that were so popular in the 1980’s. You know James Garner and the woman who would do those cute commercials. They would snap a picture and the camera would spit it out. Then watching the instant photo it would develop before your eyes. Sort of like the picture to the right. I guess many of you may think of that as a Polaroid. But I remember even before that.

My memories of Polaroid cameras go back to when i was a very little boy, maybe 4 or 5 years old.  My Grandfather had a Polaroid camera that looked more like the one to the left. I remember feeling a  sense of magic as he would take a picture of my cousin Jeri Dee or my brother or I. The flash bulb would go off really bright and I would see spots.  I used to love seeing the used flash bulbs, all burnt out. Don’t ask me why I remember that or why I was attracted to it.  Then my Grandpa would pull the picture out of the side of the camera. It would make a noise as it was pulled out.  Then you would wave the picture for what felt like forever, but was probably somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds.  He would then peel the front off the picture and there would be a picture! Between the smell of the flash and the unique chemical smell of the picture it was something that would stick with me and was unmistakable. I would look at those little pictures, with the colors kind of off for hours and hours. I did not understand why anyone would use the other kind of cameras that would take so long to get the pictures.  Forever after I always associated Polaroid cameras with my Grandfather.  Unfortunately my Grandfather died when I was 8 or 9. That was the end of Polaroid pictures for me.  Yes I probably owned an SX70 at some point, but that wasn’t the same.

So when I read that this is the end of the Polaroid camera there was a bit of a little boy me in who relived that whole memory again, lost that sense of magic of your Grandpa conjuring up pictures instantly and capturing some great times that now exist only in my memories.

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Is Twitter a good buy for Google?

So the blogosphere is all a-twitter (couldn’t help it) about Google buying Twitter.  I am sure Twitter does not have a gun to their head to sell at this point, having raised substantial money recently.  That would lead me to believe that if they are indeed serious about selling to Google, it is because there is some very serious cash on the table.  One thing I have learned is that if you have an opportunity to cash out for serious cash, you should take it.

So we understand why Twitter would sell, why would Google buy?  To this point revenue from Twitter is pretty much non-existent, so that is not a factor.  Are Sergey, Larry and company just this generations William Randolph Hearst. Eccentric collectors who bring their shiny new baubles back to their Silicon Valley based San Simeon? Will Twitter go into the curio cabinet alongside Youtube, Green Border, etc.?

I understand the strategy of buying best of breed brands and worry about monetizing them later.  But at some point Google even with its oodles of search advertising has to show how these acquisitions are going to add to the bottom line.  Yes you can have twitter searching and with it the ability to do search advertising. But do you have to buy Twitter to have that?  OneRiot announced a cool service to do this yesterday.

So when does this all come together? How do you monetize Twitter? Without a real plan to do this I think at some point investors have to ask themselves how long they are going to indulge the Google-ians in their pack rat desire to collect shiny trinkets back at the nest.

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Just what the security industry needs

So we all woke up today and the world was still here. In fact the market is even up as I write this. So was all of this Conficker stuff much ado about nothing? Maybe, maybe not, but it has certainly captured the imagination of the mainstream media and the public. More importantly it has given the security industry a much need shot in the arm. I have not seen such buzz and working together in a long time.  Kudos to Dan Kaminsky and my friend Rich Mogull for facilitating a lot of that.

A good old fashioned worm is just what NAC was designed to stop.  This could turn out being a really big boost for NAC vendors.  Alas it may come too late for some. I heard yesterday about yet another round of RIF’s at a NAC vendor based up in the Northeast.

Here is a roundup of some other security industry – Conficker news:

1. eEye back to their old ways – Remember when eEye would always release a free scan for whatever the fear de jour was? I haven’t seen them do that in years.  But they released a free test for Conficker yesterday. I wonder how many people will download it.  Ross Brown used to tell us, not sure if we will find out now, but it was nostalgic to see.

2. McAfee fails the Conficker test.  Good blog on ZDNet by Ed Bott on what McAfee did wrong with Conficker. I don’t see where there NAC can do anything about it.

3. Bill Brenner applauds the industry.  Bill has a good article up on CIO Online commending the whole industry in not over reacting to Conficker and acting reasonably for a change.

In other news:

4. Symantec dealing with its own security incident.  Oh the irony!  What does it say when your security company loses the credit card numbers.  Tsk, tsk.

5. Please tell me your just stupid. This article in the SDTimes by David N. Kleidermacher asks if the lack coding more secure apps and OS, as well as adopting better security practices is the result of apathy or ignorance.  Probably a little of both.  But I think most of it comes down to coin operation.  Put the incentives in place and people will do things more securely.

Thats it for now, have a great day!

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A study in what is wrong in America

Image via Wikipedia

Here is a perfect example of our throw away society, where shoddy quality is what we expect and it is easier to throw away than fix.  Last Wednesday our 8 year old dryer gave up the ghost.The motor burnt out and it was done.  Thursday morning Bonnie and I went to the Home Depot to by a new dryer. The had models from under 400 dollars all the way up to about 1200 dollars.  Really just 4 manufacturers though. There is Maytag, who also makes Whirlpool and Ammana. There is GE and the Korean brands LG and Samsung.  In actuality I think all of them are made in Korea anyway (what is made in America anymore?).  Bonnie and I picked out a nice Ammana model for 700 dollars.  It wasn’t the top of the line, but had enough bells, whistles and buttons to give us what we needed.  The salesman in Home Depot was the nicest guy we ever dealt with at the store and we were very satisfied.  Delivery was scheduled for Saturday and we were getting a 65 dollar rebate to cover the cost of delivery and installation.

Today the dryer was delivered and that is when the fun started. The delivery people took our old dryer out in about 2 minutes.  Part of buying the dryer is they charge you for a new vent tube.  They took out my old one and put the new one and attached to the dryer.  The way they did it the dryer was half way out in the middle of the wash room. I told them that was not acceptable. The delivery guy said that is the best they could do. I could do it myself.  Great I paid 65 dollars for delivery and install and they want me to do it myself.  I cut the vent tube while the guy was there and re-attached. He watched and inspected it and said everything was good and left.  We put clothes in the dryer and immediately started getting water on the floor. I called the delivery service and they said I cut the vent they are not responsible, call Matyag.  I called Home Depot and they said they don’t hire the install people and could only call Maytag,  They would call me right back.

Ten minutes later Home Depot called back.  Great news, Maytag is sending out a new dryer to replace this one and it will be here Wednesday.  I told the guy, I don’t need a new dryer, I think just the vent tube is no good.  He said he can’t help with the vent tube, easier to just replace the whole dryer. Are you kidding me?  Take the brand new machine, mark it defective and put a new one in, just for a 5 dollar vent tube and wait till Wed?  What a bass akwards way of doing things. Maybe that is why the Maytag repair man was so bored. They never fix these things, they just put new ones in.

I hung up, took my old vent from the old dryer, hooked it up to the new dryer and everything works fine!  No need for another new dryer and throw out this brand new perfectly good dryer. I called the Depot and told them forget it.  The sales guy explained that it is easier for them to have a new dryer sent then it is to send back the install people and redo the vent. That is a real problem and sums up much of what is wrong about the way many companies do business today.

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