Category: Uncategorized

Friday I hosted BSIDESMO at the Capitol.  We had about 80 people show up for a day full of good talks.  To be honest it was more work, more fun and ran way smoother than I thought it would for the first time I have done something like this.

I learned:
An ounce of planning is worth more than a pound of running around looking for a DVI to VGA cable.

The security community is a real community. I heard “Is there anything I can help you with” at least 50 times Friday.

People told me:
They loved the venue of the capitol.

They loved that the talks were practitioner focused. It worked great for area and the group of people who showed up.

They loved that it was free.

What went wrong?:
They didn’t like that the pizza was 30 minutes late.
(Hungry security people can get surly!)

I didn’t put enough thought into the registration process.
(Apparently we do need stinkin’ badges.)  

I didn’t have enough diet soda or mountain dew.
(Is there ever enough?)

What to work on:
Talk scheduling was the one complaint I heard. It was along the line of “I would have liked to have seen both of these talks”. 

Hold a pre-conference social time for those coming in the night before and leaving after the last talk.

Find a way to build value for the sponsors and the attendees without commercializing the event.

TheHorror361

I am going to try to post one of  my favorite old time horror episodes from relicradio.com everyday until Halloween.  This is my first one its called LOT 132.  Its really worth 30 minutes. 

I live in the middle of Missouri, I grew up in St.Louis.  When I was 8 I thought the Ozzie Smith backflip was the coolest thing in the world (Ok, it is still pretty cool).  I love to listen to Mike Shannon do play by play on the radio.  My Cardinal street cred is about as high as you can get.  

Now I also work in Network Security.   So my general disposition trends pretty hard pessimistic.  I am trained to quickly see the worst possible outcome and try to mitigate it as quickly and painlessly as possible.  ( I swear I am not as bad as that last sentence makes me out to be, I promise.)

My professional life makes it hard for me to be a good sports fan.   With “good” meaning you always think that there is a chance for them to win no matter the odds or situation.  

I didn’t think that the Cardinals had any chance to make the playoffs in August.  

I really didn’t think that they were going to beat the Phillies.

My brain tells me they will have a hard time with the Rangers.                     

So talking to most people they wouldn’t consider me a good Cardinals fan.   I try to be though. I am looking forward to the day I can sneak Landon out of school for an afternoon game at Busch 4.  The nights I can turn on the radio in his room and he can listen to the game as he drifts off to sleep.  I want to pass on my love for the cardinals to him.

So from now on I am going to try to be a good sports fan.

I predict that the Cardinals beat the Rangers in the World Series 4-2. 

No rally squirrel needed.  

Sadly this is how much most people know about cyberbullying.

This morning I was asked by Chris Kellogg to come to KFRU and talk about internet security since it is cyber security awareness month.

The 45 minutes I was on the air flew by and we didnt get to everything we wanted but we hit the following points:

• Have a different password for every website. 
• Check your credit score at annualcreditreport.com
• Using a separate credit card for all internet purchases.
• Call your bank to verify if they ask for information via email or txt message.

I had a blast and hope to be able to do it again in the future.

Now we know what the sales meetings for the Blackberry Playbook looked like at RIM.

About a month ago I was interviewed for the COMO Collective tech interview section.

Here it is. One day I will give an adult interview.

For the first day of fall: Pumpkin pie ala bazookie!

My son (kid on the right in the white polo) and his two year old Sunday school class sung a couple of songs today before church as part of their graduation to the “bigger kids” class.

Facebook has a new security feature called “Profile Review” so whenever you are tagged in a photo or a post, you’ll have to approve it before it appears in your news feed or your wall (Unapproved tagged posts and photos will appear in your profile wall in a new section called “Pending posts.”).  Of course this is an opt-in feature because security for everyone would be silly.

Here’s how to activate Profile Review:

1. Go to Account> Privacy Settings.
2. Next to “How Tags Work” click “Edit Settings”.
3. In the “How Tags Work” pop-up, click “Edit” next to “Profile Review”.
4. In the next pop-up, click “Turn on Profile Review”.

This will stop those embarrassing pictures of you at the game showing up for everyone to see until you have time to approve them yourself.