Missing Link

Information security is a tricky topic when it comes to business.   On one hand, businesses want to be secure to prevent themselves from generating negative headlines or having to tell their customers that they failed to protect their data.   On the other hand, they don’t want to spend a lot of money on something they see no tangible results for, especially when that something often times gets in the way of easily doing business.  Because of this, many companies either ignore information security, or do only the bare minimum to appease clients or regulatory compliance.   As a direct result of ignoring or doing the minimum when it comes to security, many of those companies are breached (easily) and data stolen (also easily).

Some companies strike a compromise – seeking to implement and maintain a secure environment, without necessarily breaking the bank doing so.   They implement policies and procedures that offer a fair degree of safety and security,  but also give the business the flexibility to achieve it’s business objectives.   The smart companies know that no system is every truly fully secure – or else nothing would get done.  The real key is to have a comprehensive, yet sane, global information security program.   The focus should be on maintaining a constant level of security appropriate to the environment through a series of security controls.  This should include an incident response plan that details who the players are in any security incident response scenario,   and clearly defines what their roles and responsibilities are.

(continue reading…)

I love long weekends.  They provide an opportunity to rest and relax, while also getting a few things done around the house and yard.  Normal weekends do this as well, to a point.  There’s only so much you can get done in a two day period,  and in most cases it’s one or the other – not both.   When adding in a third day a world of possibility opens – you can have fun AND get things done!

This past weekend, along with Labor Day on monday, provided such an opportunity for me.  I spent time with family and Ann,  played some World of Warcraft, and got a few things done I had wanted to for a while.   The top thing on that list was cleaning my home office.   I spend such a vast amount of time in there working, reading, and playing that it’s distracting when it becomes cluttered and messy.   As much as I am not one known for being neat and tidy all the time,   I really do get a sense of calm and accomplishment when things are clean and orderly.

(continue reading…)

America truly is a fast food nation. We’re a nation of fat asses and sloth-like behavior. We want food large, we want food greasy, and god help us we want it NOW!

We are a nation where obesity is an ever present and growing problem (no pun intended). And why shouldn’t we be? Fast food restaurants are everywhere, and often offer low cost (and low nutrition) meals that “taste great” and cost little money. But fast food isn’t the only problem, and certainly aren’t the worst offenders. Chain restaurants like Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s, Chili’s and more all are serving up disgusting amounts of calories per meal.

(continue reading…)

Once again I’ve gone off for a somewhat lengthy period of time without providing any content for those who check here every so often. My apologies, but I promise I have a very good reason for my lengthy delay, and it mostly has nothing to do with laziness.

On May 30th, a few short weeks ago, I got married to a wonderful, amazing, beautiful woman – Ann. The wedding ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was everything I hoped it could/would be. The ceremony was at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in downtown Indianapolis, and was followed by a reception in the back yard at my parents house. The weather forecast called for rain most of the day, and that morning I prayed for the weather to hold out until AFTER the reception. I believe my exact words were something along the lines of “just please let the rain hold off until after the reception, then you can unleash whatever hell you want to”. Interestingly enough, about 5 minutes after the reception ended the severe weather sirens went off and we spotted a funnel cloud with a tornado starting to come down. It was, thankfully, moving away from us.

Ann and I followed our wedding with a week in Florida, which provided a nice and relaxing start to our marriage. You just can’t beat floating around in a pool, relaxing on the beach, and getting splashed by a 12,000 pound killer whale. We also saw dolphins, both in captivity and in the wild (feeding them in captivity, and having one swim up and past us slowly in the wild, we believe to say hello). We spent several evenings in a pool-side spa drinking wine and watching the sunset. We ate some really great food (including an absolutely amazing peanut butter chocolate truffle pie) and generally had the time of our lives.

Then we came home and opened wedding presents. It was like Christmas. We got a lot of great and amazing stuff. We also had a huge volume of trash from boxes, wrapping paper, etc. I think the trash collectors hate coming to our house now. Ann says he looked especially pissed off this week.

Things are starting to settle down, now, and Ann and I are relaxing into our lives together. I couldn’t be happier than I am now, waking up next to the love of my life every single day.   

Now, you’re probably thinking “so, if you got married on the 30th, and only took a week for the honeymoon, why have you not written anything about it until now?!”

The answer is fairly simple – it’s a matter of time. I’m back to work full time doing information security work for an amazing one to one marketing company. On top of that I’m helping some friends at the Open InfoSec Foundation by performing some contract work at night and in free time.

This coming Saturday I’m getting my feet wet with Motor Sports photography, as I’ve landed some credentials to shoot at the Mid-Ohio grand-am race. We’re leaving at 3am to make it to the track in time to get setup and start shooting when the drivers and cars come out, and the actual race is at 5pm, meaning it’s going to be a VERY long day. It should be fun, though, and having access is always nice.

So I’m a few days late in posting a new post for a new year.  I’d like to claim that I was simply too busy to have time to post anything, but you and I both know I’d be lying through my teeth, so why bother?  The simple fact is I just didn’t feel any motivation to write anything. All that came to mind were the same cliches that others the blogosphere over were already subjecting you to, and I didn’t particularly feel like jumping on that bandwagon. 

So, it’s a new year.  2009.  When I was a kid, I used to imagine that somehow by crossing over into a new year things were different.   As though somehow the fact that it was suddenly January 1st meant that some unseen factor had changed, that everything was suddenly different than it used to be.  I know now that nothing really changes, except I now have to start putting 09 instead of 08 when I sign dates.  For the next few weeks anything that has to be dated by me will have a crossed out 08 in front of a hastily written 09, and THAT is really all that has changed. 

I’m actually having a very good day today.  I got some time to play WoW this morning – a game I’ve fallen in love with for the fiftybillionth time, and play whenever I get the chance.   Afterwards I had lunch with Ann before we went to pick out the tuxes for the wedding.   Nothing real fancy there, though I’m sure I’ll look nice (along with all the guys who will be there to help me celebrate). 

We also got paint, which Ann used to paint the upstairs hallway while I worked on re-doing the wiring for my workstation in my home office.  I turned a horrible mess of wires that were visible into a horrible mess of wires that nobody could see.  That’s an improvement, I suppose.   

Those of you who read my super-secret personal blog know that when I went on my trip to the west coast back in November I bought a ridiculously expensive pen,  as well as a hand-stitched leather journal.  I am happy to report that I am thoroughly enjoying both.  I have a much greater sense of freedom about what I write when it’s in a journal that is just for me.  I can let out my feelings and thoughts in a raw, unfiltered fashion. While I *can* do that here, it’s probably not a good idea for me to do so.  Besides, there’s just something fun about writing in a journal with a fountain pen….. Bob Leeds (that pen guy from California) was right… fountain pens are better. 

I am extremely happy with my home office.   It’s not large, but I don’t need it to be.   My desk *is* large, though.   It’s 10 feet wide and is everything I had hoped it could be. It’s still not 100% finished,  but is very VERY close, and that’s exciting.   All in all the office is everything I had hoped and envisioned and then some – I don’t think I could make it any better if I tried. Of course,  any suggestions from fellow geeks are welcome. 

That’s all for now – I’ll try to write something witty and humorous soon.   I make no promises.