The Ashimmy Blog

To Live and Die in a Socially Networked World

I got some bad news last night. A former co-worker and friend of mine, Ernie Ferraro passed away yesterday. Ernie and I worked together at Interliant. He was assistant general counsel, I was VP of business development. We did lots of deals together. 

Besides working together, Ernie and I had a good time and were friends. He was a true gentlemen. His first child, Olivia was born the same day as my oldest son Landon. They are both 10 years old now. We got them together a few times before I moved the family to Florida.

I stayed in touch with Ernie over the years. Mostly on Linked In or Facebook, not really seeing each other in person as much. He was always threatening to stop by when the family was in Florida, I saying next trip to NY, lets get together.

How many of you have been carrying on relationships like that with friends and colleagues? You may not call them on the phone or even email them, but seeing an update from them on a regular basis makes you feel like the connection is still strong. An occasional chat on line and you are caught up.

I just chatted with Ernie last week on Facebook. He said that he had no power in his house for days due to the weather. I told him to get away and come down here. He said that his parents were in Florida and so he and the family were staying at their house in NY. I said OK, but lets get together soon.

It seems Ernie came down with bacterial meningitis just a few days after we chatted and slipped into a coma this weekend. Yesterday the decision was made to remove him from life support.

I found out about Ernie’s plight while chatting with another former colleague of ours on Facebook. I was devastated by the news. I went over to Ernie’s Facebook page, numb and in shock.

There was such an outpouring of love on his page. Literally hundreds of people had left heartfelt messages. Each in their own way conveying their sympathy, support and love. I felt part of a community.

I left my own message to Ernie and his family. I read with tear filled eyes the message from Olivia to her daddy about not being sad about missing so many of her life accomplishments to come. Of course I couldn’t help but think of my own children and how much I want to see them accomplish and do. It both broke my heart and gave me strength to go on.

But moving beyond that, what a profound difference social networking has made in our day to day lives. Not just in living our lives, but in death as well. It is changing the way we grieve, how we express our grief and how we share our sorrow.

I thought back to just over a month ago. My good friend Mitchell Ashley was sitting bedside at a hospice in Colorado, as his wife Mary Ellen fought her final battle in a years long war with breast cancer.

I didn’t want to pester Mitchell for updates minute by minute. But Mitchell was brave enough to post a constant stream of updates on Facebook of what was going on, how Mary Ellen was doing, what he was feeling.

Though I was 1700 miles away, I felt like I was there with Mitchell. Not just myself either. From the posts and messages I know that many near and far to Mitchell were following his updates and sending good thoughts and prayers his way. I again felt like I was part of a community who was both supporting Mitchell and sharing in the trauma. There was a giving of support and a partaking in the moment.

In speaking to Mitchell I know that it was a cathartic experience for him to share the experience in that way. After Mary Ellen passed away, Mitchell posted several poems and other thoughts about how he was feeling and dealing with the grieving process. It was a great outlet for him. Many of his friends and family post and comment on the page as well.

It is a great outlet and way to share for all of us. In death, maybe more than in life, I guess humans need to share. Social networking presents us with a new way of sharing. It makes you feel connected no matter the physical distance. It gives us strength. It also gives us unprecedented insight into what others are feeling and saying as well. It truly connects us.

I think that grief counselors, psychologists and mental health professionals should start using social networking as a way of helping those in need. It can be a great force for good at the worst of times.

So for those who say Twitter and Facebook are for people who feel compelled to tell everyone every move they make and they don’t care what plant you harvested or what plane you just got on, you are missing the point. Social networking is about socializing. It has changed our lives already in so many ways. From the cradle to the grave and beyond, nothing is the same. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

To my friends Ernie and Mary Ellen, rest in peace with God. We left here on this earth will miss your smiles and warmth and sharing.

Security.Exe podcast powered by The CISO Group

 Well we are at it again! Mitchell and I debut our old/new podcast under the Security.Exe brand. Of course it is powered by The CISO Group our new company. But it is the same old Mitchell and Alan. Besides talking a bit about The CISO Group (not enough in my opinion), Mitchell and I spend a bit of time going down an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole. We talk about Google/China, APT, why we are not secure in general, what consumers want in security and a bunch of other things. I was about to break out some beers, as the two of us wax on (or is it wax off) poetically about things.

Anyway, now that we have that out of the way, Mitchell and I will be podcasting quite a bit. We hope to be joined by our fellow CISO Group partners, Parker, Josh and Bobby in future episodes. Of course we will have special guests as well. So stay tuned as we crank this baby up

Security.Exe powered by The CISO Group with Alan Shimel a...

Security.Exe powered by The CISO Group with Alan Shimel &...

I give you The CISO Group

Many of you have asked and I suppose just as many of you don’t really care. But ready or not, we are launching our new company today.  Take a deep breath, its a great day to launch. The name of the company is The CISO Group. I am one of 5 principals or managing partners in the company. We are starting off with a rather narrow focus, but like most I guess we have plans to expand in due time.

I will get into the who’s and why’s in a moment, but let me get this stuff out first. We have an excellent new blog/podcast we have started for the new company. It is called security.exe and the URL is http://www.securityexe.com. Here is the press release announcing The CISO Group.

My first post on security.exe is titled “Why the CISO Group”. I am going to paste it in here for you all to read. But before you do, I wanted to say thanks for all of the good wishes and support I have received from so many over the last few months. Making The CISO Group successful is going to take a lot of hard work on our part. But knowing that we have so many friends out there helps.  Thanks again!

Why The CISO Group?

A few people have asked me why I have decided to join with my fellow founding members bringing The CISO Group to market.  Excellent question. The economy is far from good right now, there are lots of security companies chasing limited dollars and the safe thing to do would be go look for a job and steady paycheck. But once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. I have not taken a "job" in a very long time. For me work is about passion. If I can't be passionate about what I am doing, I can't be successful. Part of that passion is knowing that I am building something.  Other people build bridges and roads, I like to build companies.

Mitchell Ashley and I have spoke about doing another company ever since he left StillSecure 3 years or so ago. We work very well together and most of all we have fun together.  Working with Mitchell we usually have at least one good belly laugh a day.  Josh Karp is another fellow I have worked with and traveled around the country with. He is a great talent, but again most importantly someone that is fun to work with. Parker Yates is someone I worked with 10 years ago or more.  But Parker and I had such a good time, while being successful, that we always stayed in touch over the years.  Bobby Dominquez, my other fellow founding partner is actually someone who has been a customer of mine for years. I have known Bobby while he was CSO at several different companies.  Yes, he is a finalist for CSO of the year for two years running, but Bobby is someone I have fun working with.

The common theme here is that all of the folks at The CISO Group are people I enjoy working with. They are all incredibly talented in their own right as well.  We looked at the current state of the security market. Yes it is very competitive, but there are still lots of places that represent opportunity. We think our CISO on Demand is a great concept that has worked for the CIO and CFO role in the past and is high time it worked for the CSO role. In fact it is even better suited to the CISO role.  We also see a huge opportunity in the PCI market. There are lots of people in that field, but it is a big field that promises to grow bigger.

The bottom line is that I think this is a great time to start a new company. At this stage in my life I would trade the VC dollars and dreams of building the next big thing for a solid company, working with people I enjoy and respect and most of all having fun! If in doing so we can fill a need in the market, as we think we can, what more does one person need?  I am looking forward to making The CISO Group very successful and having fun working with my partners!

An Incite-ful Tuesday: Playing catch up

It happens to me every year at this time. I want to enjoy the holidays with the kids. Friends are having parties, lines are long at the stores and it seems like I can never get to everything on my list.  On top of this I am hard at work putting everything together for the new venture. I almost forgot what its like to get the website together, power points, business cards and the thousand other little things in that make it real.  Luckily I have some great folks I am working with and I don’t have to carry the load myself. In the meantime I have like 6 or 7 tabs open on the browser (in Chrome as I am really liking it better than Firefox right now) on topics I want to comment on. So will do a Rothman and lump them together here.

Anyway, I am sure you are all busy with your holiday plans and activities as well.  It may seem like nothing ever gets finished and there is always so much more to do. But take a moment, look around and realize what the season is all about. Be grateful for what you have, it is probably more than most in this world have. Enjoy!

1. US, Russia and UN in SALT-START treaty negotiations on limiting cyberwarfare.  I am old to enough to remember first President Nixon and then many others signing treaties with the former Soviet Union limiting the number of nuclear missiles we had aimed at each other.  I remember always thinking phew, now each side only has enough to destroy the world 20, 10 or even 5 times over.  But bothering me was the fact that it would only take one time to destroy the world. I still remember shelter drills where we would have to either crouch down under our desks or go into the school basement in case we were attacked.  Like hiding under one of those crappy little desks at school was going to save us from a nuclear holocaust! Anyway, I was reminded of all this reading an article in the NY Times detailing that the US has joined the rest of the world, but especially Russia in discussing limiting cyberwar weapons.  My only question is you can supposedly count missiles, how are going to count logic bombs? But I am sure there are smart people working on all of this and will be watching what comes out of it.

2. Security is a people thing! One of the lessons I have certainly learned about security is that you can have the greatest technology in the world. You can have the latest new security gizmos and appliances, layered in one after the next. But if you don’t have the right people in place, empowered with the resources and authority they require, it just don’t mean a thing. Max Huang, CEO of O2Security says the same thing in this opinion piece over at SC Magazine. Good to see a vendor guy coming to the same conclusions.

3. NAC market shrinks to 37m in Q3. Jeff Wilson and his band of Infonetics have put out a new NAC report which I wrote about earlier. In this article in TMC Net they use Jeff’s numbers to report that the NAC market actually shrunk to about 37m last quarter. Of course you need to know what they define as the NAC market. Is it just appliances, is supporting gear included or agents? I think he is talking just appliances. In any event, I think that is widely optimistic. But even giving Jeff the benefit of the doubt, it pales in comparison to the wild numbers that were tossed around a few years ago by the analyst community on where NAC would be now.  But hey they weren’t the only ones wrong about NAC ;-)

4. Raising the barriers to resell your products – FAIL. I never understood this strategy. WatchGuard announced a new MSSP partner program in this report on the MSP mentor. Nothing special really, they are packaging the on premises appliances and remote management to the MSP partners to offer a turn key managed service for them to go to market with. Fortinet and others do the same thing.  But what Watchguard is saying is their special sauce is “is their 4-part certification process to become a partner, according to Chris McKie, director, global analysis and public relations, WatchGuard.” They are going to make partners go through 2 levels of technical certification. There sales teams have to be of a certain size and quality and WatchGuard’s support team has to approve the partner as well. 

I understand raising the bar and having skin in the game. But if you make it too hard for people to resell your products, guess what? That’s right, they won’t resell your products. I am not advocating that you have a Cisco situation with resellers cutting each others throats for a point or two, but when you are WatchGuard I would think you want to broaden the channel.

Anyway, that is it for today. I have a podcast scheduled for tonight with Mitchell and whole list of other stuff I have to get on to. Have a great day!

The Alan and Mitchell Podcast - Who is that masked man? Mike Rothman!

Hi-Yo Silver, Away! The Lone Ranger rides again. Well in this case the only thing silver may be his hair. But at least he has his hair, which is more than I can say.  Mitchell and I are happy to be joined this week by our old friend and once again chief Security Inciter, Mike Rothman.   It is always a pleasure to have Mike on and he is never at a shortage of things to say.

Mike, Mitchell and I discuss post-vendor puke life for all three of us. What’s next for us? Well you will have to listen to the show to know. Of course a podcast with the three of us would not be complete without ragging on some security issues. So we discuss the recent lawsuit against the POS provider for capturing and storing mag data from credit cards. Did IBM overpay for Guardium? Is the new “black screen of death” a hoax or has someone gamed Microsoft’s patch process?  Finally, what drives so many powerful, successful men to think they can get away with anything and do stupid things ala “Cheetah” Woods?

Anyway, always good to have Mike on the show and we will have him on again soon!

The Alan & Mitchell Podcast - Who is that masked man?

Alan & Mitchell's Podcast

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StillSecure, After all these years, Podcast 64

No guests tonight! Just Mitchell and I talking and laughing.  We had a good time talking about the ProtectPoint acquisition, Windows 7, NAC, Mike Rothman, what Mitchell is up to and anything else that popped up.

It is vintage SSAATY.  Hope you enjoy!

Thanks to Pod0matic for hosting our podcast. Tonight's music is the usual, To the Summit by Jon Schmidt. You can hear more from Jon at http://www.jonschmidt.com. Music transitions between segments are by our own Mitchell Ashley!

What was the biggest security story of 2008?

And what will be the big security story of 2009?  Do you think you have the answer to either one of these?  If so leave your answer in a comment to this post.  Mitchell Ashley and I will be doing our usual year end podcast around New Years.  We would love to talk about what our readers think the big story was this year and what the big story was last year. 

If you like leave your name and we will be sure to give you the plug for your answer.  Thanks and looking forward to hearing what you think!

StillSecure, After all these years, Podcast 62- Mike Rothman

Mitchell and I are joined by our friend Mike Rothman for this show taped on Thanksgiving Eve.  Mike has "taken off the objectivity suit" and is now a vendor puke for eIQ Networks.  Mike talks about his reasons for taking the job, what eIQ is about and what about the analyst gig.

We also discuss with Mike some of the latest news in security.  As always, Mitchell and I have a great time with Mike and the time goes by too quickly. I am sure you will enjoy what Mike has to say as well.

Mitchell and I had two shows taped, so rather than wait I released them both . We have another one ready to go in the next week or so as well, so stay tuned.

Thanks to Pod0matic for hosting our podcast. Tonight's music is the usual, To the Summit by Jon Schmidt. You can hear more from Jon at http://www.jonschmidt.com. Music transitions between segments are by our own Mitchell Ashley!

Enjoy the podcast!

StillSecure, After all these years, Podcast 61*

SSAATY #61 has Mitchell and I joined by Steve Goodbarn, CEO of Secure64, developers of a DNSSec solution. Mitchell and I get a well grounded technical background on DNSSec and what Steve is trying to do.

We so inspired Steve that he started his how blog shortly thereafter. His blog is at http://www.stevegoodbarn.com.

Thanks to Pod0matic for hosting our podcast. Tonight's music is the usual, To the Summit by Jon Schmidt. You can hear more from Jon at http://www.jonschmidt.com. Music transitions between segments are by our own Mitchell Ashley!

Enjoy the podcast!

BTW, in case you are wondering the * is for the number 61. I just can't write 61 with out an * next to it,  here is to Roger Maris and the Babe.

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Blogging as therapy

As some of you know, my friend Mitchell Ashley and his wife Mary Ellen have been battling against breast cancer for over 3 years now. It has been a roller coaster ride for both of them and I have seen first hand how much courage it has taken for Mitchell to deal with this scourge, let alone the courage that Mary Ellen has in battling this disease. Though Mitchell has never made a secret of it, he has not made it very public either. That has now changed with a new blog that Mitchell started call breastcancerforhusbands.com.

Mitchell wants to share his experience as the "other" spouse in this life and death battle that too many couples face. He is looking to make it a resource for others faced with a similar battle. But there is part of doing this which is therapeutic for Mitchell as well. Talking about what he is feeling and going through helps him deal with the emotions and toll it takes. At the same time he is providing resources to those who may be in need.

I applaud Mitchell for being brave enough to come forward and face these demons publicly. Though we do not work together every day, Mitchell and I still speak almost every day. I know that he and Mary Ellen fight this each and every day and am constantly amazed at their faith in God and courage. If you get a chance, check out the blog and support Mitchell, Mary Ellen and the rest of the people who do battle with this terrible disease every day.

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