Fly Fishing on the Stream of Conscience

yeah yeah back off I know

2008-12-03T17:54:00.001-07:00

Do I have anything interesting to say - well that depends. I have been busy - I have been concentrating on changing my life, making me a better person, jazz like that. So while I am not quite ready to spill those beans I am going to throw a link out for those that may be looking to change their own directions. I wish I was in a place where I could pursue something like this, alas I am not but who says you aren't. Take a look and see Change Your Life

I promise I am returning and I ahve a lot to say.

i know i know

2008-03-23T03:23:00.001-06:00

It has been awhile since I have attempted to put anything of value up on my blog. I had a quick story back in February on dealing with my son but really nothing since December.

I am still making the long haul from Seattle to Germany on a regular basis - literally every two weeks. Lufthansa is adding a new direct from Seattle to Frankfurt at the end of this month so I plan to start taking that. It cuts almost 4 hours out of my flying time - definitely worth it.

I have been working hard and the office rewarded me for it. I was recently promoted to Director level within my consulting firm. It brings some new challenges and some changes. The title is only a couple weeks old and I have been back in Germany since being upgraded - so I haven't really had to act "Directorish". This will of course change over the next couple of weeks.

Next I am in Amsterdam all week for Blackhat Europe. The first couple of days I will be in class learning Reverse Engineering: Application in Malicious Code Analysis. I am really looking forward to the class. It should be interesting and allow me to be more successful in my on reverse engineering assignments. I wrap that up and zip back to the States on the 29th.

I will be in Seattle for a week (time to practice being a manager) then I am off to San Francisco for RSA. There I will get to practice my new Director skills as I begin the process of moving IOActive forward in their information security offerings (glamorous words for me being a sales guy for a week). I will also be there as a technical resource to help the real sales people discuss what we can do as a resource for an organization. I am really excited about this. I have begun to make some new contacts and I am really looking forward to increasing the range of discussions and add my own input to the security community.

After that long week I will be back in Seattle reviewing what I learned at RSA and preparing for a trip back to Germany. If you don't follow me on Dopplr let me know and I will add you. My travel schedule is crazy....

I am considering starting a new blog that I can use more as a sounding ground for my security interests and what I am learning as an InfoSec manager. This will allow those that don't really care about where there credit card numbers go to rest to read about me versus my security minded opinions. I will let you know when it goes live.

Update: I went ahead and started the new blog. You can find it here at Were I taking this seriously...

sometimes Dad isn't right

2008-02-20T05:53:00.002-07:00

So this post started off as a comment for one of my favorite ExPat blogs here in Germany.

A few years back when my son was learning his colors, his brilliant father saw an amazing opportunity to screw with his mind. I decided that I would mistakingly teach him that blue was purple - there was ample opportunity to reaffirm this behavior as he was a fan of Thomas the Train - a very blue train.

So I would privately giggle to myself when he would call out purple while mom quizzed him on his colors. Mom would patiently explain that it was blue, he would look puzzled briefly and they would move on. I thought how funny - heh heh dad messing with the little one's head. Father's take perverse pleasure's in warping the minds of youth today. I am sure my father madly giggles (ok so he guffaws) whenever I tell him of something that my own son has done to me recently.

Well one Friday night we were shopping in Barnes and Noble (the married couple with kids date night) and I was sitting reading a magazine while my son played with Thomas (the very blue train).

A young girl of 5 or 6 approached with her brother and began to play with the giant Thomas the (very blue) train set. She began to tell her brother the colors of things. Finally reaching Thomas she said "blue". My son stopped and looked at her "No that's purple!" I at this moment looked up from my magazine to see the glare coming from a young woman deciding that this little boy was in need of a solid 'put in his place'. "No!" she said, "this is blue! dummy." My son's upper lip trembling replied, "No it's purple - daddy tell her that it's purple." Ah geez why are we dragging the old man into this?

I looked upon the children over the top of my magazine. My eyes were instantly met by a little girl with her arms crossed, and a glare any woman would be proud of. My son stood there, a look of deep concern upon his face (this is a positive thing - he is learning who wears the pants early.)

"Well son this little girl is correct. The train is blue not purple." The little girl looked at me as if to say, "are you an idiot teaching your kid this crap."

I looked at my little man. A look of defeat flashing across his face and then he turned to me and said, "daddy your an idiot." Okay so he said I was a dummy. Ahh the mouth of babes.

I heard a slight giggle from the bookshelf down and his mother covered her mouth as she stepped away. An evil smile on her face. "Yes, son your dad is an idiot."

Christmas gifts for mom

2007-12-20T13:23:00.001-07:00

So this year the family decided to do puts name in the bucket and draw who was buying who a gift. I ended up with my mother. I love my mom, but buying her a Christmas gift is probably the hardest thing in the world to do. I know all the things she likes - do you realize how hard it is now to find an antique cookbook for her collection, or a tin that she hasn't already found. Forget it.

So this year I decided to raid my photographs and pick two that I thought she might like. These are the two I picked. I am a few days late, but I am getting them printed and matted and will ship them off as soon as possible. She knows I can barely remember to tie my own shoes most days - shouldn't be a surprise I can't mail Christmas gifts on time.

Something about the colors in this one. I am going to have it matted with a rust border, similar to the beads in the picture.

This picture - wow - I might have this one matted for myself.

So there you go - mommy's always like something their babies made for them.

Just sitting at my desk in Seattle

2007-12-19T13:01:00.001-07:00

I was just staring out the window and kind of amazed at my location in Seattle. There are some crazy views from the windows on the 68th floor.

Here's what it looks like from my desk:

This is the view from the back office:

and finally here's the other side of our space:

I will be back with something of value in the coming days.

planes, trains and my mis-adventures...

2007-12-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

So where did I leave you last - oh yes - I shared my experience with Hertz and then my visit with the awesome Expat bloggers that I follow.

So last Monday my colleague Demon and myself flew back from the States. We had made the trip home for Thanksgiving. Demon and his roommate came over for dinner with my family.

I served my "martha stewart" turkey (it should be on the cover of a magazine it looks so yummy), bourbon sweat potatoes, green bean casserole, wild mushroom stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and turkey gravy. Typing this up is making me hungry for more turkey. Oh I can't forget my pumpkin cheesecake - this is my favorite - I make two of these because I want a piece every night from the moment I cut it till it is gone.

I wish I had pictures of all of us crowded around our little table with plates full and giving thanks for friends and family - next year I promise.

Monday morning creeped back around and Demon and I had a driver pick us up and deliver us to the airport. We cracked our standard, how do you tell an american in europe jokes? "take their shoes off, wearing ball caps, etc" as we worked our way through security. The pilot in front of us was laughing and enjoyed our company. We breezed through the airport, bounced through the business lounge and once again longed for the things we have in Europe. I tell you I am getting corrupted living abroad.

Our plane flight was uneventful until somewhere around 5am. Demon had long been asleep. His several drinks had worked mine hadn't - argh! I had finally given up on sleep and had converted from a bed back to a seat. I was looking at the available movies for the 90th time that night and then it happened. A smell so awful, it slinked along the floor, clawing it's way up the seat and then attacked my sinuses. Someone had died on the plane - not literally but something inside of them had ripped it's way free of their internal control and had taken it upon itself to find me and pummel me stupid. Were it possible to identify the owner of this wretched smell I would have woken them with my smiling slightly lunatic face pressed very close, minus my front teeth and asked then politely to find the nearest WC/bathroom and rid themselves of whatever demon had possessed them. Instead I sat in silence and wished a thousand camels fleas upon them.

I have begun to hate flying. I have been doing this constantly for 7 months or so. I don't mind short little hops here and there but these long hauls are going to turn me into crazy man. Some would argue that I am closing in on that status without much help from the airline industry.

It isn't really the airplane or crew - I am flying business class - they serve me enough alcohol and food to put me into a coma - they know what they are doing. What is making me crazy is the time. Once a month I have a 12 hour day. Somewhere in there the other 12 hours just completely disappear. I go from it being Monday to it being Tuesday somewhere over the Atlantic. I am young (shut up peanut gallery) this shouldn't effect me but it does. I lose time, where did it go? Who is taking this time? May I have it back some day? The BDA is bothered by this. Then the reverse happens on the return I get a 27 hour day. Someone throws some time back at me. This kills the nice organized sections of my brain that care about things like that. Time is all relative - I know I know, but this isn't right. Just let me whine alright - I was granted permission to do that by lumping in with Whiney Expats.

Trains - now that's a decent form of transportation. Well decent as long as they aren't on strike. You can book a seat without needing a degree in expedition planning by simply heading by the local train station and talking to the nice people who just want to help you. I know - I was just as surprised - it was amazing (hand wave) customer service. Supposedly I could do all this on the web but after attempting by myself and then procuring the help of a german colleague to book the tickets I just gave up and headed to the train station. It worked out in the end.

So back to trains. They are just cool. You are relaxed, room to walk around, pleasant atmosphere and if you splurge you can even get a cabin by yourself. There is a bar car, restaurant and a guy wandering the aisles bringing hot coffee. I love it. I wish we had more trains available in the states. We have a quick ride between Seattle and Portland that I will probably take a few times in the coming months while I try to accomplish some work in the States. Rumor has it that this is one of the few corridor lines left on the west coast.

I fell in love with trains when I was younger. My father loved them, and by proxy I felt love for them. My son likes them too. I like how that works out. My love affair with trains continued as I grew older - I had a young lady friend (sounds more romantic than girlfriend) living in Delaware and I would catch a train from Georgia or North Carolina up to spend long weekends with her. Of course we slept in separate beds - what kind of guy do you think I am. Alright I was lying about that part but the rest is true. I would leave late on Thursday night 9pm or so out of this little train station and would be in Delaware in the morning. She only had one class and would be done about the time I arrived. The romance lasted for a couple of semesters and I rode the train a lot as a starving college student. So now I find myself in Europe and have the opportunity to ride the train and then I discover that the train is as expensive as a plane sometimes more expensive. Oh well, I will ride them when I can.

Demon and I are headed off to Amsterdam (riding the train!) for a conference on PCI DSS in Europe. I should be an expert of sorts on this - I recently sat on a panel and shared the good and the bad of the practices around protecting credit card data. However my current client is going to need all the help I can get them so I am off to meet the people running PCI in Europe. Should be fun. I doubt I will blog about the conference - the few followers I have bribed to follow me could care less about the scary things I do. Even fewer are interested in the assessment procedures for validating whether a control has been properly implemented safe guarding said credit card information. These people want to know their data is safe and that the bad guys can't get it.

i know i know - you don't post anymore - you don't love me

2007-11-30T07:34:00.001-07:00

My schedule has been a little hectic lately. I was in Zaragoza, Spain for a week performing a security assessment and obviously wandering the city. I love Spain - I will be back. The food was amazing (hand motion), the people were friendly (I was labeled a "kissy slut" because I enjoyed the european kiss on both cheeks so much), did I mention the food was amazing.

My Spanish slowly began what we fondly called Sprench by the end of the week. I learned to speak French when I was younger - unfortunately when I have had a round or two and the brain gets slightly twisted I assume that you can use French for Spanish. So when I couldn't think of the word in Spanish and there were several I couldn't think of I used french. Makes for interesting conversation with people - fortunately at one point in my adventures there was a french man with us and he and I stood in the corner speaking a foreign language I can sort of communicate in. Please remember that my French still brings a smile, not quite the laughter that my broken German brings people. The party I was with wouldn't allow me to grab my translator so we stumbled along in my broken Spanish and there english. Red wine and tapas will make everything good. After a wonderful week I headed back to Germany.

Ahh Germany how I had missed you so. I landed in Nuremberg (Nürnberg) a little over an hour late. I had stopped in Frankfurt at the Hertz rental and had them confirm for me that my rental car was waiting for me in Nuremberg airport. Sometimes I worry about silly things like this. The pretty young lady smiled at me, checked the reservation, said things were good and I wandered off to find my plane. I arrive in Nuremberg excited to go jump into the BMW 7 that I had rented previously from Hertz.

Instead here's the conversation I had with the Hertz girl.

me: "Hi I am Ward Spangenberg. here's my confirmation and my Gold Card Number."

her: "You're late."

me: "Well yes I am."

her: "We don't have a car for you."

me: "umm I confirmed in Frankfurt that you had a car for me. I have a confirmation number. I am a Gold member. Where's my car?"

her: "We don't have a car for you. You were late."

me: "I understand I am late. That's part of why we use credit cards and join the Gold service is so that you guarantee the car will be here for me."

her: "We don't have a car for you. You were late."

me: "So what do you suggest I do"

her: "Rent from someone else."

me: "alrightie then - thanks for your help"

her: "danken sie. auf Wiedersehen."

I kid you not. A friend would tell me later that weekend to remember that in Germany, "you are paying for the service, not the customer service." It should be noted that my brain is a bit weak on exact quote that J provided me with but hey you get the idea.

I wandered over to Avis and they had a car I could rent. I ended up with an Audi A3 from Avis. A cute little Audi with enough pep and most importantly a navi system.

I grabbed my friend, who in a week's time had managed to garner one new nickname from our client "demon" and meet a wunderbar Glas washer - no good german translation for that. We jumped in the card and headed off to Dresden for the 3rd Whiney Expat German Meetup. That by the way is not an exact description about this group of people. I don't think we whined at all the whole weekend. Well I may have but I am just a big baby.

Half way to Dresden I gave up the car keys so my buddy could drive on the Autobahn. Somewhere in that I tweeted with worry about "Demon" having that maniacal look in his eyes and the speedometer pegged. On the return I heard him mumble something like, "it won't go any faster - I have had the pedal stuck to the floorboards since we got outside of Dresden." (I took some creative license with his mumbling.)

We arrived safely in Dresden and wandered off to find the other Expats at the ice cream shop. Umm yummy ice cream - so I ordered a cappuccino.

After introductions - meaning I walked right into the middle of the people speaking english and said, "Hi I am Ward". I naturally assume that everyone no matter where I am in the world knows the "Big Dumb American" (need to trademark that - hmm wait did I just trademark that.) Guess what I am not near as famous in reality as I am in "ward's world."

Needless to say we were off and running. I am sure I scared a couple of people - it could have been me talking about all the scary things that "Demon" and I do with security - or it could be that I am a BDA. Everyone was polite and slowly slid away from me.

Our illustrious leader J arrived and the group wandered into the streets. You now have 10-15 (counting has never been my strong suit) americans/canucks wandering the streets of Dresden. We were also graced with two very tolerant germans.

I have several pictures. Here is one of my favorites as wandered along towards the river and our boat trip.

I can't say enough about how wonderful it was to meet everyone. The entire group brought new perspectives, insights and humor to the meetup. I have received several compliments in their posts about the weekend. I thank all of you. There are several memories from the weekend - others have put them to words - I have just cataloged them for reference in my future stories. Literally translated this means Ward really needs to start carrying his Moleskin with him again and taking notes.

It was a blast to meet the people behind the blogs - I get sort of star struck when meeting writers. I consider myself a hack and follow bloggers who write far better than I do. My fond hope is to one day be one of those bloggers people refer to and laugh about. You guys all rock - thanks for letting the BDA and the LDA follow along (little dumb american - he is really a medium - so going forward I will stop with the jokes about his learning disability aardvark.)

So where was I?

Oh so Sunday rolled around and MDA and I jumped in the car - and as stated before barreled down the Autobahn towards Herzo and my apartment. I went to sleep - I wasn't driving what do you expect from me?

Monday morning creeped around and we both caught planes back to the states. Details that should be mentioned here include the fact that we visited the neighborhood mexican restaurant and drank towards stupidity. Hint: don't tell a German bartender his drinks are weak.

We hit the states for T-day, me appearing on television to talk about the scary things called RFID (still waiting for them to put the video up - will link later) and me cutting down a Christmas tree.

I will leave you here. More misadventure on the return trip to Germany to follow.

where you been kid?

2007-11-10T12:48:00.001-07:00

So it has been awhile since I have posted, felt like I should get an update in before I head off next weekend to the meetup in Dresden.

I am currently in Zaragoza, Spain. It is a beautiful city - come to think of it I haven't been anywhere in Europe yet that has been ugly. I am staying at the Hotel Palafox. It is a great hotel, super service and centrally located to everything so I can walk around and get lost.

I slept in this morning, had an amazing (hand effects - ask me sometime) breakfast. The breakfast buffet introduced me to so many wonderful things and the variety of fresh fruit will bring me back. I then wandered off the hotel lobby to finish my book. I felt like taking my time today and was rewarded with a beautiful afternoon to wander the streets. The Spanish seem to have had better planners working on the designs for the road layout than most of the German cities I have been getting lost in.

Unfortunately my spanish is as bad as my german, so I spent a long day building up the nerve to enter a restaurant and get something to eat. I eventually chose Pasta Nostra. The food was good and their Tiramisu made me all warm inside.

As for my language skills - I have been in denial for several months now. I am scared to try my limited language skills - well shy - somewhere in my life I decided that unless I can speak the language it is better to keep my mouth shut. I wonder if that was drilled into my head by my french teacher. I pissed her off on a regular basis and have managed to only be able to read and write french - my pronunciation is horrible.

This actually explains a lot to me - I take language much like any of my other skills - if I can't do it perfectly then I practice till I have it well enough that I feel comfortable - and comfortable for me is defined as better than average. I refuse to play the guitar for anyone because I don't feel that I can play it well enough to sit with anyone - I am missing the opportunity to learn from others because I am shy/scared/stupid. The same goes for my language - I won't attempt to use it because I don't feel like I have enough of a grasp to be understood, and I want to be understood. First step is realizing you have a problem.

I read an interesting post the other day about learning a language. His ideas follow a scientific approach that makes sense to me. Suddenly I am filled with new confidence to try things out and see where they go. Wow - all this from wandering around Zaragoza - scared because I don't want to be insulting for not speaking the language.

okay then - guess that's done.

I have some questions now.

Why don't they have instruction manuals on bidets? The BDAB isn't up to date on the proper use of such devices and is curious. Maybe google holds the answer.

Why is Russia Television (RT) in english?

Why do the Spanish rename American things? i.e. New York = Nueva York, Cookie Monster = Monstruo de las galletas

Just wondering...

whatcha doin?

2007-10-22T11:09:00.001-06:00

I see the light - well okay really it's just the end of October and I am going to be bounding off to Seattle for a week on Friday. I am happy to be heading home - it has been a long month and I am looking forward to seeing everyone. I did my prerequisite gift shopping for everyone - chocolates, Legos, Cinderella Barbie, and Thomas Sabo.

I managed to catch the England vs. South Africa game. I was disappointed that England lost - just can't be a Bok fan. The try after careful consideration was really not a try - I agree with the video judge - hate video judges now for that reason - when did we decide that we needed them?

The referee on the field called the try but the Line Judge said nope - so off to the box the Referee goes - as we the hunched crowd in Finnegans screamed TRY TRY TRY - Prince and other Prince Brother both shared our views - and - BAH the Line Judge was correct! As the french would mumble, "C'est la vie!"

I received a compliment the other day when I responded correctly in german. The gentleman said that my accent was correct and I had responded perfectly. The first and last time I pull that off. I have been trying to practice ordering my breakfast and coffee in German - I am trying to pull it off.

All right it has been a really long day so I am going to take off

absence makes the heart grow fonder

2007-10-13T07:09:00.001-06:00

So I have been in Germany for 3 months now. You know that you have been away for too long when you watch a silly television show and watch two people kiss and your breath catches and you wish that it was your wife/husband that you were kissing like that. That's all the embarrassment I am willing to suffer for the day. So enough about my television viewing habits.

Life is good. I fall in love with Germany a little bit more each week.

Since my blog is more of a rambling account of the silliness that invades the area where I am residing I tend to browse other people's blogs with more intelligence and better observations and then comment on them. There have been several stories back and forth lately among the crazy ex-pats and their experiences living abroad. Do the Germans like us or not? Do we care? How do we make friendships? Is the Nuremburger better with mustard or without?

One of my favorite posts in the past couple of weeks was about Americans and Germans interaction. This post was great and also disheartening to me. One it finally helped me understand why I am having such a hard time building friendships with Germans. Basically I am going to need to be here for awhile and get invited into the group. I can deal with that. I discussed this with one of the German fellows I work with and he generally agreed with the article and the points made. His comment was that even Germans have the same problem between cities. The north not liking the south. Wow sounds just like being back in the states. Craziness!

The disheartening part of the article was me taking a moment to reflect about the generalized behavior associated with Americans and our social groups. I say disheartening because it made me examine my friendships and realize that their basis was very fragile and really only related to the circumstance we were in at the moment, whether that be career choice, sporting activity, or coffee shop (bar) we hang out at. I have only had 5 really good friends. People outside of what we did, where we were, that I could call at any moment and be on the same track within moments of hearing the other's voice. My friends are scattered around the US; Washington, Kansas, NY, NC. I have the friends in the same town, neighbors, etcetera but these are built around our current time, place and circumstance. The Germans have it figured out, "Enormous warmth, compassion, and helpfulness permeate the private sphere, while the public realm is generally characterized by social distance and purely functional exchanges with only formal involvement. Conversely, all 'impersonal' values - particularly those indigenous to the economic and occupational spheres such as achievement, competition, and goal-attainment - are strictly banned from the private sphere. Nor are public sphere relationships characterized by these values viewed as capable of being transformed easily into ones of friendship. Thus, frequent contact in the workplace - the major 'recruitment' arena for friends in the US -- does not lead, to the same extent, to the development of close ties." (copied from German Joys via American sociologist Stephen Kalberg)

I like this. It makes sense to me. These are the people you want influencing your life, your children, things within your sphere. I really like this. If you have a moment check out the post - I have read it a couple of times - some would say I am slow I prefer to believe I am being thoughtful.

As for whether German's hating us - I strive daily to be a positive representative of the US. This doesn't mean I am not still the BDAB ("big dumb american boy") My german sucks, but I am trying Tee sounds just like Tea to me but the Der Beck girl laughs at me every day. The Germans I work with love my BDAB stories - some of them even want to introduce me to their wives - guess I can't be that bad. I understand that the politics associated with my country are a bit absurd but hey I didn't vote for the knucklehead either time.

Oh by the way - you should always have the spicy mustard on your Nuremburgers - it's just plain yummy!

eeps almost forget - the 3rd Whiney Expat Blogger in Germany Meet-Up is just around the corner. I will get to meet people who at first glance appear to be much smarter about this living abroad thing than me and maybe they can laugh at my BDAB stories, or at least laugh at my attempts at learning German. See you there.

McDonalds saved my life

2007-10-03T05:08:00.001-06:00

Okay so it really didn't but for whatever reason this morning when I woke up (actually it was almost 11 when my lazy body decided to finally open my eyes) I was homesick - I mean really homesick - I needed something - so I got dressed climbed into my car and started driving - low and behold was a McDonalds.

I know that there is a McDonalds here in town - I have driven by it countless times and refused to stop and get anything - we have them on every corner that Starbucks hasn't bought in the US. Anyway back to my story...

I parked walked inside and got into line. Lines are a foreign thing it appears everywhere I go in Europe - in Paris there are no lines on the streets. A gentleman told me that because of the lack of lines people were more careful when driving - yeah okay whatever you say - crazy frenchies!

Another great example that leaves me boggled is while waiting to board the plane, there is always a mass crowd that surges forward and is forced into a bunch that eventually settles into a single file sort of line - but only after the crowd has been forced into this.

What's the deal - why are lines an issue? Is it the forced compliance to stand behind each other? I know they aren't complicated to form - I have seen local children all following along behind each other with little to no jostling to get to the front - when does this stop making sense, I must have missed that lecture in school. (my father is grinning right now - yeah just one more lecture you missed Bubba)

After a 15 minute wait and jostle I managed to approach the counter and attempt to order in my broken german. I don't claim to be very good, actually I suck when it comes to speaking german - I can say Hello, Thank You, and Goodbye, and Please. I am frustrated with myself that I have not forced myself to learn more. I have not been overly impressed with the Rosetta software - it seems well a bit slow to actually teaching me things of value - although I know how to say dog, cat, horse, man, woman, boy, girl, and airplane.

So I order a Big Mac, 0,4l Kaltgetränk und Mittlere Pommes - well that's what i tried to order - the young lady serving me laughed and started to speak to me in english - I give up - if I try my german and I get laughed at, I am not being successful - but no I continue to plug ahead and attempt to order Griechischer Salat (greek salad) and she laughs at me again. This is not going my way.

Anyway I manage to get my food and eat it. Big Macs taste the same all over the world - I know this because I was having a panic attack one time while working in Hong Kong. I had gotten tired of being yelled at by a million people for being the big dumb american boy and needed something to bring me back to reality - McDonalds and the Big Mac saved my life there too.

So I am back in Germany, happy to be here but miss the family. At least I have McDonalds.

another long flight and all i got was some ear plugs and a blindfold

2007-09-07T08:33:00.001-06:00

So I lost on the seatmate roulette on the trip back. The gentleman next to me said 3 words the entire flight - I noticed he was carrying a speech concerning DRM so I didn't really introduce myself - I figured something about how DRM was really a waste of time wouldn't be a good conversation starter.

I did get to enjoy a beautiful sunrise over the Netherlands this morning. It is amazing to be flying along above the clouds and see the sun slowly rise, warming everything up. It made the fact that I was awake at 4:00 am a little more bearable.

I saw the first Starbucks in Amsterdam on my way through the airport. I will take my customary picture on the return trip. I was in a rush to get to my plane and didn't stop for my customary iced americano.

I am off to Paris for the weekend. It is Rugby World Cup and I have premier tickets to the Samoa/South Africa game. One of my best friends is flying into Paris and we will go the game on Sunday. Our seats are almost on the field. The Boks are expected to win but Samoa is going to come out and play hard.

My trip back across the pond

2007-08-29T11:55:00.000-06:00

I like to fly. I still have the romantic image of flying from when I was a child. My parents dressed me up; you always dressed nicely for a flight. You got to the airport, waited patiently (as patient as a small child who loves airplanes can be); boarded the plane and off we flew. The experience was amazing. Well that’s what I remember, and since it is my memory I am going to keep it that way.

I am flying back from Germany. One of the little games I play in my head is called “Seatmate Roulette.” Sometimes I am really lucky, there was this one time where I sat next to a dancer from Cirque du Soleil, other times I am presented with well the bullet.

Today however was a lucky day – I was fortunate enough to be seated next to a 17 year old young woman who gave me faith that my own little girl has a chance. This young lady was amazingly polite, yet managed to give her little brother a hard time when he couldn’t actually figure out what country were leaving (in his defense he is 13 and well he is 13.) I smiled and settled back to read whatever men’s magazine I snagged in the airport and this young lady pulls out “Freakonomics” For the crowd reading at home – not necessarily the reading you expect out of a 17 year old, heck I read it and most people would wonder what I was doing carrying the book around. I was amazed and congratulated her on her selection, and she began a conversation with me.

Let be known that I talk to everyone. I like hearing about peoples’ experiences. I like to hear their stories.

So I discover that Katie is being moved back to the US. She has spent the last 13 years living in Belgium. She like any high school’r is a bit worried about things: her boyfriend is still in Belgium (he will visit in October and December), the fact that she has been able to enjoy a glass of wine with her family since she was 16 (we tend to frown upon that in the States), she has never even driven a car and will have to get her permit in the coming month (her brother failed the first time he took the test and he was a freshman in college), she played sports at her school in Belgium and now she has to start the whole process over again (volleyball, basketball and track – no Futbol.)

It was refreshing to talk to this young lady. She was a confident young woman who had grown up abroad, understood that she would have to deal with cliques and silly girl stuff that just isn’t as important outside the US. She was scared but also aware that she could conquer these fears.

We talked off and on as we flew from Frankfurt to Washington, DC. I asked questions about growing up abroad. She said that going to International Schools were amazing – you constantly got to meet new kids. Everyone was always open to new people joining the group. She talked about how amazing it was to be part of sports teams that traveled around Europe. She told me about shopping trips to Singapore with her mother. I enjoyed every minute of the trip, listening to her stories.

When we got to DC I was able to commend her mother on having such a wonderful daughter. I wish I had gushed more. Her daughter is something wonderful.

I can only hope that my wife and I can raise our daughter to be this confident and sure of herself. The world needs more young women like this and the Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton crowd aren’t creating them.

5 second post

2007-08-20T09:41:00.000-06:00

So while I was chilling on the couch Sunday afternoon - (Note: This is a rare occurrence for me however Germany is attempting to teach me new behaviors by closing everything and rolling up the sidewalks on Sundays. Well except for the sidewalks heading towards a Gastehaus) - anyway back to the point of the story I invested some time on google and discovered that I was not alone and that there are lots of crazy americans who have packed it up and moved over here - Expats is a better word but I remain one of those crazy americans to my workmates.

So I have invited myself along to an Expat meetup in Dresden in October/November.

Thanks to my new found blogger friends.

Mausi
Germany Doesn't Suck

Oh and I also found an online grocery store that will get me those things I crave from the states.

Still alive and eating too

2007-08-17T11:16:00.000-06:00

So another week and I managed to get to the grocery store twice and not make a fool of myself. You need to weigh the vegetables before coming to the checkout. If you don't hopefully there is a nice german woman standing behind you that shows you how to get things done without slowing the line horribly.

I have managed to learn to say hello (when the german girls say al-lo makes your heart go pitter patter.) I am practicing my little vocabulary and trying to learn new words as quickly a possible. I need a friend - wonder how you advertise that. Would you be my friend and teach me german while you are at it - I just need a walking translator that I don't annoy, that shouldn't be that hard to find. (my friends are laughing so hard right now they can't see straight.)

I can order a beer ein gross Pils (the really big beer). You should also know that there are breweries within a stone's throw of everywhere you are located. Some crazy number like 3000 breweries. My father warned me of this - along the lines of, "Ward you really don't have to sample all 3000 the first week you are there."

I have learned that you can order meals without something fried included.My father also warned me of this. He forgot to mention that they make this potato dumpling with bread crumbs inside and covered in gravy that could only be eaten with a slab beef that made my heart skip a beat or two and me smile for two days about how yummy it was. If it only came wrapped in bacon too...

My car makes me giggle every time I get in. Someone thought it would be funny to rent me a Peugeot 107 My Director was in town at the beginning of the week and he and I couldn't sit shoulder to shoulder in the car. It was a funny sight. Someone made the comment that at least the trunk could hold two cases of beer. Is everything is measured in beer?

What else? Money - Us crazy Americans and our credit cards. Mine is worthless over here. I have found one place that takes my card, well besides the outlet store. So I carry cash for everything, not a problem but then they really throw me a curveball - 1 and 2 euro coins. Craziness I tell you, I have 50lbs of coins in my pocket that I never seem to get rid of. I actually counted it this morning and I was carrying 25 euros in my pocket.

So to all those that are considering a trip to Germany, drop me a line, at the very least I can take you out for beer and wurst.

Where in the world is Ward?

2007-08-13T07:35:00.000-06:00

So for those that don't know it - I took a 5 month assignment in Germany. I got to Germany last Wendesday morning and managed to work almost a full day before turning into a zombie. It took a few days for me to recover from the flight. Who knew partying like a rock star in Vegas for 3 days before jumping on a plane to fly around the world was a bad idea. Who knew?

I spent my weekend in my new home...working... I spent almost the entire weekend writing up a report for a client in the US. Oh well, work seems to follow no matter where you are in the world. Late on Sunday morning I wrapped up and managed to get into town. I am currently in an apartment provided by Hotel HerzogsPark in Herzongenrauch

The town is cute. I know, people hate to hear that, according to something I read the first recorded mention of the town was in the year 1009. When town's are celebrating their 1000 year anniversary you have to be impressed. Yes I know that it is only 2007 - just pointing out that - oh forget it. The town's first recording was 1009, sure it was around before that.

So I am scrambling to learn enough German to be dangerous. If you have any recommendations let me know. I own RosettaStone, "Complete Idiot's Guide to LEARN GERMAN Your Own, and an english/german dictionary. I really need someone who wants to practice english while teaching the big bescheuert american boy german...

I'm coming back!

2007-08-01T00:50:00.000-06:00

I have been gone for awhile, however that's all about to change. I am heading off to Europe for 5 months of work and fun and I will be updating and sharing my adventures once again. Stay tuned!

What position am I on the security hockey team?

2006-11-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

I just got caught up again on some of my favorite blogs. Among those is the TaoSecurity run by Richard Bejtlich. If you ever get to speak with him, take one of his classes or generally hang out with him, take the time. You can sponge quite a bit listening to him and those that flock around him. Anyway on to the point..

Richard had a recent post comparing hockey to security work. He has a solid reference to a darn fine hockey player and how he changed the game by moving from being solely a defensemen to skating the ice and shooting the puck. I have always admired defensemen who can take solid shots - two of my favorites have played for the Av's: Blake and Bourque. There skill, as Bejtlich points out, is being well rounded, able to play as a forward and be back to help the goalie. He then asks what position you play on the security hockey team.

So it got me to thinking - what position do I play? Well I know I am not a goalie. You can never be a successful consultant and be a goalie. Getting and keeping contracts are based upon the individual being able to handle whatever situation is thrown at you, whether it is defensive and helping build a firewall, to being a forward and auditing the capabilities of the newest web application that is being deployed to being a bit of both and performing a PCI assessment.

So in the end I think I am a defensemen. I want to play as a forward, the rock stars - but I know my levels and that I can't skate that fast. So I will stay back at the blue line, let fly a slap shot every once in awhile that will rattle the goalie's teeth and be a good consultant. I will continue to learn as much as possible, question the forwards on what they are doing - asking Dan Kaminsky sometime to slow down and explain the DNS over DNS.

Thanks Richard - glad I stopped to get a better view of where I play on the team.

MP4 versus WMV and why the Zune won't fly.

2006-11-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

So in my spare time (sometime around 9pm, and ends somewhere around 2am) I picked up a fun new hobby/gig. I became the producer, editor and consultant to an online company. I have been around the internet for awhile and have learned a thing or two; so this opportunity really called out to me. I record video clips of physical trainers and models, edit them with Final Cut, add some background music (original score by me) using Soundtrack Pro and then hand it off to the web admin to have posted on the site. When the site officially launches I will point you in the right direction. As part of this I have stumbled across another gig, helping put together a DVD for sale that has training information for Professional Mountain Bikers.

So as one of the requirements to the content delivery I need to offer video clips to the widest audience I can. To do this I obviously want to hit the Video iPod market, and with the introduction of the Zune (it sucks!) I need to include them too. I happily started off encoding everything to mp4 directly from FC5 and was very happy with the results, everyone was happy, amazed (one of the models seemed shocked that I knew what I was doing!)

The Zune arrives and we decide we should encode to the best format for the Zune. Same video size as the Video iPod, with more compression. I start encoding and look at the results. They are horrible, artifacts everywhere. I go back tweak the settings higher, encode again. Results only mildly better. I decide to push the limits of the device and crank it up, encode and I get tolerable. I am really upset by this point, figure I am missing something. I grab my Zune, and head off to the Apple store, catch up with a Apple Pro and show them the final WMV product - after they laugh and point at the Zune - we start discussing my settings. The Pro says I have maxed the FC5 settings, that the windows media codec is giving me what it is going to give me. This really depresses me.

If I was going to introduce a product that i expected to compete with Apple I would try to deliver something that rocked. What was Microsoft thinking - the video is really horrible, and even doing encoding using the MS tools and using the best draft copies to encode with I got nothing better. The Zune while kind of cute will probably get returned to Best Buy because I can see little to no use for the device.

On a side note: my Zune software loaded without a hitch, although the Windows XP Pro computer was only two days old - I needed something to look at my WMV product and figured that the Dell in the corner was getting lonely.

Here are the recommended Zune WMV settings:

Audio: 128 Kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo CBR
Video: 320x240
Video Bit Rate: 500K

Not pretty so I tried

Audio: 128 Kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo CBR
Video: 320x240
Video Bit Rate: 1000K

not that much better so I tried the max the Zune will run with

Audio: 128 Kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo CBR
Video: 320x240
Video Bit Rate: 1500K

I was still unhappy - blacks were ugly, colors not holding true. I did this all from the Windows Media Encoder 9. Until someone sits down and tweaks the codec, MS is going to have problems convincing anyone that they want a Zune for video content.

I will keep you updated as I play with the codec looking for a way to make things look better - just not ready to write MS off, I believe they can figure things out or I can find a suitable enough shim to make everyone happy.

*This is not a paid advertisement - I use a Mac for everything, but MS is kinda cool in a hurt puppy kind of way*

Where have I been?

2006-05-22T17:32:00.000-06:00

So the big question - where did I go? What happened? Why did I stop posting?

Well for the last year I have been a security consultant, performing PCI assessments, VOIP audits, and generally geeking around in the security industry. This is all about to change - I took a new job - I will be starting at ManiaTV on May 31st.

Take a look at the web page, let me know what you think. I am excited and looking forward to the opportunity. I am planning on updating my blog more regulary, so stay tuned.

Pete Ashdown for US Senate

2005-07-21T12:36:00.000-06:00

Well in my two year stint in Utah I managed to meet Pete on several occasions. He is a great guy, understands technology; Xmission was to be one of the providers on the network I worked on, and had the public's general interest at heart when he spoke in front of several city council meetings concerning the project iw ass associated with. I wish him luck in his bid. If I still lived in Utah I would happily donate my time and money to help him.

Thanks to Boing Boing for letting me know about this.

2005-06-29T16:58:00.000-06:00

Berks-Mont Newspapers - Kutztown Area Patriot - 06/23/2005 - 13 teens face felonies: "06/23/2005
13 teens face felonies
By: Dan Roman

Thirteen Kutztown Area High School students are facing felony charges for tampering with district-issued laptop computers.

According to parent testimony and confirmed by an otherwise vaguely-worded letter from the Kutztown Police Department, students got hold of the system's secret administrative password and reconfigured their computers to achieve greater Internet and network access.

Some students used the newfound freedom to download music and inappropriate images from the Internet.

(Via BoingBoing .)

Okay once again people are getting out of control with punishing for security violations.

I would like to first point out that "50Trexler" is a horrid password. No special characters and it is more than likely someone's last name. So the school administration's is already weak before we look at the student's poor behavior. The student's took advantage of their administration falling down on the job - no one was obviously looking at access logs, auditing the computers, or even tracking administration access over the whole year. I notice if someone new has attempted access on my network daily. Handing a tool to someone and then not teaching or monitoring the usage of the tool gurantees that the user will figure out other ways to "play" with the tool.

I am not defending the student's behavior. Was the student behavior right? No! Is it a felony? Well let RIAA decide that one - they like to prosecute old ladies and children. It's like having a substitute teacher in the classroom - you know to a certain degree things are going to fall apart - we all look for human weakness and try to use it to our advantage - high school students do this on a daily basis.

As a security auditor I notice regulary that even if you hand someone a written policy you are never guranteed compliance. However, if you demostrate to the user that there are reasons for the policy and that you are going to monitor their usage regulary - you have a smaller percentage of people abusing the policy. In my eyes the school dropped the ball - the students picked it up and played a game or two. The administration should have stopped the behavior at the first instance and enforced the violation with a solid slap on the wrist - jail might be a bit extreme. Even RIAA just tries to make you pay for violations - helps float the music companies that were robbed at gun point.

Noodling for Catfish

2005-05-06T11:41:00.000-06:00

Growing up in North Carolina, not quite a redneck but definately not a city boy we were always looking for ways to entertain ourselves, be it chasing groundhogs with slingshots to shooting branches out from under squirrels so they would fall down into the middle of the girls sunbathing on the quad, but I don't ever remember my old man saying to me, "hey son, let's go grab some catfish by the lips and yank him out of the water. it'll be fun." (remember to say this with a good southern drawl)

Please remember no catfish has lips to harm nor do the people of North Carolina like to equate themselves at the lower social status of those from the armpits further south.

I ger-ron-tee that there are those of a different upbringing than me that will point out North Carolina's own mistakes in not being able to determine whose side it was on during certain 'portant battles of these here 'Nited States. To those I remind you that we still drink and eat our Budweezer and Moonpies or for the youngins RC Cola same as you folk do.

Gosh I sure do miss home.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

I went and "switched" ...

2005-05-02T15:17:00.000-06:00

This last week on the way home from the office I stopped off at the local Apple store and purchased a brand spanking new 15" Powerbook, with 100 Gig HD, 1 Gig RAM, and 128 Mb video card. About the only thing left would have been to get the 17" monitor which I see no purpose for.

So I started playing with it as soon as I walked in the door of my house - my wife's comment was something like, "you are more proud of that new laptop than you were when you got your little girl last year for father's day!" She's wrong, I love my little peaches but hey I am a geek and this is a brand new powerbook.

I didn't get Tiger - the guys at the store convinced me to hang on, and I agreed with them. Some great articles about Tiger have been in the news. The best being the Ars Technica article . I have read it three times and have finally gotten a solid understanding of what's going on underneath the hood. I like articles that make me think about how things work. I also picked up a copy of Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks. I'm not sure I am a unix geek but this book as showed me how to do things the mac way that I commonly do on all my other *nix boxs.

I have also installed SubEthaEdit, Fink, Ethereal, iTerm, iPodder, and NetNewsWire Lite. All of these programs are shareware utilities. My powerbook was more valuable to me in about 2 hours of work than the usual 4 hours of work it takes me to get my Windows XP boxes ready to go. Plus all of the utilities I installed didn't cost me another arm and a leg to Microsoft for them.

To understand what I mean check out the article I mentioned about comparing Apples to oranges-Dell . That article had a follow up today comparing Apples to IBM Powerbooks.

I am noticing things I need to do some research on: .png files not showing up correctly in Safari, some ASP pages don't behave correctly under Safari or Firefox, blogger.com editor doesn't have all the options in Safari, have to convert old exchange to mbox then import into mail to import finally into entourage.

I will keep you updated as the machines joins my family of 9 other pcs. We counted them at lunch today.

Oh it already made a friend in my wife. I took my son's first soccer game, edited it with iMovie, and then burned it to DVD with titles using iDVD (5 copies, grandparents, and a dear friend, and of course a copy for mom and dad) all in about an hour. It made up for my sudden infatuation with a piece of warm aluminum.

Standing in the middle of Apple's Tiger Extravaganza

2005-04-29T18:38:00.000-06:00

So i managed to get in the door within only about 15 minutes of it's release here in Colorado. Unfortunately I will not be going home with Tiger. I filled my paperwork out and mailed faxed it in this morning. I figure sometime next week I will see my copy of Tiger show up in the mailbox. Overall I think this release will be the one everyone talks about as the main reason they finally made the "switch". It is one of the final factors in why I decided to make the move. The IBM laptop will be made into a dual boot redhat/xp machine this weekend, and I will be a fulltime Mac user. Ahh the fun of belonging to a new cult.

Musings from Mars: Of Course Macs Are More Expensive... Aren't They?

2005-04-25T14:07:00.000-06:00

This is a great article. When people start to take this into account and really understand what they are getting, things might change....

Redfaced professor made up scary story

2005-04-25T13:49:00.000-06:00

The story just keeps getting better. As reports of the professors' threats circulated, we all waited with bated breath to only discover the thief could care less and there was very little reality to the whole story. Ah come on - nothing was real, darn it - here you had as all waiting for the Fed's to come swooping in, raiding a dorm on campus, turning up some ring of laptop thieves who stole professors notes to sell on the black market to people that actually cared what their professors were saying in the first place or in reality just wanted the easy A that was guaranteed by having a copy of the test and answers.

Penguins Not Harassed by DIA Security

2005-04-25T10:53:00.000-06:00

Two flightless birds manage to get through security and catch their flight yet I have to stay and be interviewed every time. Next time I am wearing my tuxedo to the airport, maybe then I can cruise right through then.

Then again the birds have friends in high places, well on the tail of Frontier planes I saw some penguins. Wonder if they are related?

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

2005-04-25T10:46:00.000-06:00

I have followed Scoble's blog for awhile. I like the fact that he puts a face on Microsoft. I spent an interesting two years working as a contractor for Microsoft as part of the Windows 2000 RRAS team. I loved it. M$ was a great place to work, the people were super friendly and the evil empire wasn't so bad. I worked on a hall that had several HP guys running HPUX, a SUN dude or two running Solaris, and an easy dozen Redhat fans, including myself with machines in their offices running various flavors of Linux. Since those days I have tried to not bash to hard on Microsoft. I saw the problems, knew what they were up against and then I saw the people and how hard they worked. I had a brief sting down at SUN land in Cali and saw the same thing. The same excitement about their products and where they were going. It's nice to see both Scoble and Alan see something that us low men on the totem pole had already figured out.

How to Build a Computerized Android Robot Head for $600.00.

2005-04-25T10:27:00.000-06:00

Now this is cool. A little work, voice recognition, and I could probably get away with this sitting at my desk all day long answering questions for me while I was out fly fishing. As always BoingBoing delivers.

TIME.com: Any Kerry Supporters On The Line? -- May. 02, 2005

2005-04-25T10:17:00.000-06:00

Wow - so I am to gather from this as long as you don't admit you are a democrat you can play in the US Telecom arena. Bushie Bushie Bushie - you need to tone down your boys - these things can get ugly and then they start to effect your bank account, and we all know without your bank account you wouldn't be near as popular.

Ameritrade warns clients about potential data breach

2005-04-22T10:17:00.000-06:00

Here we go again. A friend of mine compiled an interesting list of numbers yesterday. I will quote him directly on this:

... I've spent some time doing research on ID Theft thats happened since December '04 and came up with the following...

DSW: 1.5 million
LexisNexis: 320,000
ChoicePoint: 145,000
Bank of America: 1.2 Million
San Jose Medical Group: 185,000
California State University: 59,000
Boston College: 120,000
George Mason University: 30,000
Delta Blood Bank: 100,000
UC Berkeley: 98,000
SAIC: UNKNOWN NUMBER
UC San Diego: 3,500

TOTAL: 3,760,500

thanks Glen!

So then we throw in Ameritrade and a professor at UCB and we are approaching 4 million and 1 ID thefts in the first quarter of the year. Guess we can only get better from here. Right?

A Brief Tutorial on Reverse Engineering OS X - OSNews.com

2005-04-22T10:10:00.000-06:00

Very interesting article. My penny jar is approaching the overflow which means I will be purchasing my first powebook at the beginning of next month. I have been waiting on my powerbook purchase until Tiger's release. Now it seems I will have to practice some techniques listed here to get back some features Apple has deemed I am unworthy of.

Airlines to deliver video to laptops, says Microsoft blogger | News.blog | CNET News.com

2005-04-22T10:03:00.000-06:00

Wow, so where will they keep the IT guy who will need to run around to everyone's seat and configure their wireless card. The stewards will be asking whether you would like coffee, tea, or IT support?

where oh where did my little laptop go

2005-04-22T09:40:00.000-06:00

This cartoon puts it the best. After reading the story on Boing Boing yesterday I sat staring at my screen wondering exactly how this gentleman was allowed to teach the youth of tomorrow.

I have a huge respect for college professors. I look to them to be wise and all knowing (hey it's my dream and I can believe what I want.) However, what logic was the professor applying when he thought - hmm let's put all this research I do, and some IPO information, and well anything that is super secret all on this laptop and leave it sitting on my desk after class.

Yes, I know I am a bit biased because I work at security company. I know that I commonly apply to all my laptops, things like, BIOS password, system password, PGP disk. I also don't leave my laptop laying in public places - I fundamentally don't trust people.

Maybe I should call him and see if he wants a security assessment? Or he could just go on the web and find something easy to follow like this: Laptop Security Guidelines. I really like the one about a cable lock the best ;-)

It will be interesting to see how this story plays out.

Where did my Google ranking go

2005-04-21T14:44:00.000-06:00

So I had been telling everyone to find me all they had to do was Google me. I said this because for the last several months my blog was the top reference to who Ward Spangenberg was. Not anymore - what happened? what did I do? where do I go from here?

Another note I have discovered my Technorati ranking is 1,113,718. I am thinking this is probably bad. It also appears that no one cares what I say, because I have no links. A friend of mine Phil Windley, actually the whole reason I found out about Technorati, must be super high on the list as when you search his name you get about a million hits. Does this make me invisible? Do I matter? Am I matter?

I have a couple of new posts in the next day or so. Recaps of two different security meetings I attended. One is on Web Application Security and the other is on Incident Response and Digital Forensics. Maybe someone will care.

I have added a new little ticker on the right - courtesy of Symantec. It is kind of interesting look at what is going on in the security world.

Things I have been thinking about...

2005-04-19T16:07:00.000-06:00

Internet Traffic Analysis: This has long been a major topic at NANOG. I have heard several interesting discussions concerning tracking where spikes in the infrastructure are coming from, and their destinations. Here and Here. I am more curious about a seismic like data concerning massed DDoS attacks. Symantec has a product called deepsight similar to what I am thinking about, not sure whether there are other vendors with similar products.

I am interested in seeing a database that has remote probes scattered across the internet colo'd at prime target destination subnets collecting and analyzing inbound traffic. The model looks like a worldwide IDS, learning about new traffic and attacks as they are being assembled. The idea needs some more work. Just rolling it around in my head at the moment.

April's ISSA-Denver Meeting

2005-04-14T09:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon the local ISSA chapter hosted a very interesting speaker. The speaker was Patti Titus, the current Chief Information Security Officer, Transportation Security Administration DHS. I was going to link to her bio but it appears to not exist anywhere so I will just copy it and then go into my notes about her discussion.

Patricia Titus currently reports to the Chief Information Officer at Transportation Security Administration in Washington, DC, in the capacity of the Chief Information Security Officer and Director of IT Security. Her duties have been to develop and implement a new IT Security Office for TSA. She also reports and works for the CISO at the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to joining TSA in April 2002, Ms. Titus was assigned as a Technical Advisor to the Deputy CIO at the Department of Treasury. Since joining public service in March 2000, Ms. Titus has been assigned to various emerging technology projects and has worked extensively on the enterprise network security projects. Prior to public server Ms. Titus worked in small start up companies within the DC metropolitan area as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. She spent several years in the Information Technology industry in various capacities. Prior to this she spent 13 years living overseas on duty with the US State Department, Department of Defense and Swiss Government.

Okay so now you know who she is - here's what she had to say:

Patti had several points she wanted to convey to the crowd, anong the points she touched on
were Homeland Security Presidential Directive/Hspd-12, a policy for a Common Identification Standard for Federal Employees and Contractor. Basically the problem has come to light that there exist "Wide variations in the quality and security of forms of identification used to gain access to secure Federal and other facilities where there is potential for terrorist attacks need to be eliminated. Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to enhance security, increase Government efficiency, reduce identity fraud, and protect personal privacy by establishing a mandatory, Government-wide standard for secure and reliable forms of identification issued by the Federal Government to its employees and contractors (including contractor employees). " Patti discussed the need for implementation of better biometeric solutions, PKI infrasturcture etc. She however did not comment on where the money was going to come from to finance these cool new gadgets for the government.

As previous user of biometrics this intrigues me - during a normal week I encountered no less than 20 false readings for a simple finger print scanner that allowed access to the lab I worked in. If we are going to utilize this technology in the government we really need to make things work - the common worker will not tolerate having to scan their finger 3 or 4 times every time they try to enter a room.

There was a brief discussion concerning IPSonar, an enterprise software consists of several interrelated discovery processes that find routes and routers, hosts, servers, wireless access points, operating system information, unauthorized connections or hosts, and perimeter leaks. This included how an intern was the one who actually deployed the initial testing launch of this program and how the resulting report of holes lead to the report being labeled - TOP SECRET - ONLY THOSE AT THE TOP CAN SEE THIS -

This is discouraging news to me. I would hope that our government would be running toolsets by now that allow them to accurately discover and gauge the risk that their network has to the outside world. To have an intern (Hats of to her for pointing out the silliness) come in and throw a product on the network that so accurately describes where water is pouring from the damn is not a building confidence for those security geeks who pay attention to these things.

We learned some interesting things about the TSA's luggage machines - no wonder I get yanked all the time - I must be getting the guy who isn't punching the threat button fast enough.

Patti discussed the convergence of CIO and CISO positions in the enterprise market. I agree with her on this one - the CISO position had little chance of survival in my eyes, typically you are stepping on the CIO/CTO's toes and something has to give. I will be curious to see whether we actually see the CISO blend with the CFO position. The advent of SOX puts the financial department on the hook for non-compliancy, with jail sentences following quickly behind that.

Patti left with a few thoughts, reminding us that We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists, Cyber or Real! She also said something that made me wonder how soon till we see someone hunt down a "cracker" and put a bullet in him for cracking their systems.

All and all a very interesting speaker - I had an opportunity to have dinner with her the night before her speech and was happy to meet some one who was candid about her role within the current administration, the political appointees and what was right and wrong with our current behaviors.

Things....

2005-03-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Location:

So I am sitting in Fado's - Chicago. It's an Irish pub that has free wireless, so I can sit and work all while drinking a pint of Guinness. Very few things can get better than that in my opinion. If you happen to be in the neighborhood of a Fado, I would recommend the the Guiness Stew - good home cooking, and to wrap things up, you guessed it Guinness Ice Cream.

If you get a chance look try to end up in Brie's section - she doesn't own a computer but she really digs bloggers. Yes, I used dig and no, I didn't ask for her number my wife doesn't share well with other children

Now on to other things...

I registered for my CISA exam recently. This should be interesting. If I pass, and I plan to, I will have what the industry is considering the top two certifications going: CISSP and CISA. The next thing I have to figure out is what I want to be when I grow up. If you have any ideas let me know. Registering for the exam cost me a quick 500 dollars and then another 250 for study materials - somewhere I hear warning bells going off. The test is offered once a year, so I had better pass or suffer the abuse for the next twelve months.

And in other news...

Commwarrior.A
Finally we have a virus for mobile phones. Uses bluetooth and MMS messages to replicate itself. I wondered how long this would take, ever since I started using the Audiovox 5600 (the same phone Scoble and crew love so much - side note i had mine before Scoble got his - nanner nanner). It is based on Windows SmartPhone so I know it will be the next platform for attack.

Firewalls' False Sense of Security
I have argued for both sides of this issue. A majority of the time I find that the deployment team behind the firewall believe that they have mitigated all future damage because of their firewall deployment. Conversations then lead to IDS, IPS - I have no idea where it will end - I do know that every time a new stop is added someone will look for a new way to get over the bump.

Now back to my regulary consumed beer.

Squaw - what I would change?

2005-03-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

Just got back from an extended weekend at Squaw valley. The resort's village is currently being operated by Intrawest, the same guys who did Whistler.

It was a great trip - a yearly 'boys' trip that has several interesting characters, including: Rick aka 'the Founder', Chuck aka 'Chuckles/Chuckalafucas', Andrew aka 'the Scotsman', Chris aka 'Mr. Goodlookin' and myself Ward aka 'Big Daddy'.

We had a wonderful time, there was good snow - nothing fresh - that didn't show till the last night and we got 7 inches of fresh powder - wanted to extend the trip by one more day for some pow pow but instead I got on the plane and flew back to Denver.

Squaw's new village - looks very similar to Whistler (why change a good thing?) - could use some help. As I said I was there for 5 days - while the mouse is away from the kitty he can play with other mice. We stayed exactly 22 feet from the Squaw one lift, and about 100 feet from the closest bar - yet - the nightlife was horrid.

I have lived in ski towns before - I remember the 1 woman to 12 guy ratio, and this was expected but I grew up in a more lively town smack in the middle of the bible belt - one bar closed at 9 pm on Sunday night. The drive thru liquor store the next county over in North Carolina would have still been open. Needless to say - the experience was repeated night after night for the entire weekend.

So I say to the intrawest guys - figure out beyond copying the buildings, how to create the same nightlife experience you have at Whistler or start preparing yourself for continued disappointment at Squaw.

On a side note - the little breakfast place at the end of the village - two wonderful waitresses (Bunny and ????) and one great owner (Lisa) made the week a little better.

This is great...

2005-02-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

I have a new respect for Jon Stewart since he went after the CNN boys and his show continues to bring that liberal perspective forward so well.

Bloggers and the trouble they cause

Update on the Suse side of things

2005-02-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

So I spent a hour or so screwing around with the problematic Suse install and discovered a couple of things:

Using the GUI to access the network card was doing next to nothing. If I added DNS entries they did not show up in the resolv.conf file, if clicked it off the file did not modify upon recieving a DHCP update.

Using the GUI, I could never create a default gateway, I had to add a default gateway via the command line. This should also be learned via the DHCP packet.

So basically somewhere in the process of the system/kernel update DHCP got screwed up. I can only grab a DHCP address, I don't appear to learn anything else from the DHCP packet - although firing up Ethereal shows that the information is contained within the packet.

I am not sure whether I really want to troubleshoot any deeper or whether I want to chunk the machine and try again. I would prefer to run Fedora, I know the OS better and seem better able to dig around within the file structure but then the company I am working for has their tool ported to Suse argh choices.....

Problems with Linux

2005-02-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

So in an effort to keep my mind fresh I decided to set my laptop up to dual boot - Windows XP and Suse 9.2. This is a usual occurance for me. I have built dozen such laptops but I think I have finally reached my boiling point. I have an IBM Thinkpad R51, Pentium M 1.6, 768 Meg RAM, 40 Gig HD, built in ethernet, and 802.11b/g. This is a nice little laptop, shouldn't have any problems with Suse 9.2.

Where things went wrong - I decided to patch the box - patching is similar having your teeth pulled.

I began the patching process, everything appeared to go correctly, and then I did the reboot as I had also told YaST to upgrade my kernel. Well everything appeared to be working, so I decided to browse the web. It didn't work. It took me a couple of tries before the onboard ethernet grabbed an ip address. I still can't browse the web. I grab an ip address but DNS doesn't appear to work. I hard code DNS entries, still nothing, disable firewall, still nothing. Threaten to toss the laptop out the window, still ntohing. So I am left with an upgraded SUSE 9.2 professional that can't speak to the internet.

I used YaST, a tool that does always leaves me wondering what is really going on under the hood. A lot of people have commented on the efffectiveness of this tool. I miss some of the tools that RedHat has in comparison. I am going to have to take things apart now.

So where does this leave us? This points to the underlying probelm with why there aren't more Linux desktops - the complexity. I don't mind getting under the hood, but then my dad handed me a lawn mower engine when I was a kid so that I could understand how motors work. Most people want things to work, straight up. I didn't have that experience, in fact I mumbled under my breath at one point that I was either going back to Fedora or FreeBSD over the weekend. Why? They work, I have had little to no problems with upgrading them, and when I patch them things keep working. I also know that the whole problem could be somewhere between the brain and the keyboard. ;)

and then it disappeared....

2005-02-10T13:59:00.000-07:00

Easy come - easy go.

Well that wasn't long enough

2005-02-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

So I have become a Principal Security Engineer for a company called ReddShell. They have a neat software product and they have some really cool consultants working here.

I got back to Colorado on Sunday night, started the new job on Wednesday and was told on Thursday to pack my bags I would in Chicago for the next month. Needless to say the wife wasn't exactly happy with me and well I was a bit disappointed myself. I was looking forward to being home for a few weeks, I was even beginning to enjoy changing the little girl's diapers. Oh but the life of a consultant requires some sacrafice and so I must head off to Chicago in February.

I am diving headfirst into the world of VISA CISP and Sarbanes-Oxley. Should be fun, finally going to use that silly CISSP for something useful.

Leaving Utah

2005-01-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well it has finally come to the end. January 28th was my last day with DynamicCity. I decided to leave the UTOPIA project for multiple reasons - all eventually leading to the betterment of myself as a person. My boss put it the best - refering to me as a Technological Gypsy. I like that, may spin that off into another blog line.

I leave my responsibilities in very capable hands. Right now I am sure he is questioning the logic of accepting my position but I believe he will find a strong supporting staff and make his name known. If you or anyone you know is looking for a job as a senior network engineer or sysadmin please contact DynamicCity or Dave.

I managed to get in one more CTO breakfast before skipping town. Phil as always is a wonderful host. If you find yourself in the area during one of the scheduled breakfasts please take the time to attend. I will be trying to schedule my own trips back occasionally for them.

It was nice to talk to people at the breakfast and discover that they understood my decisions to move on from the project. They understood that occasionally you stop growing in your position and you either need to get out or continue to be miserable. This led to some interesting discussions.

A vast majority of people are stuck in jobs, or towns or situations where they don't ever leave. They continue to live with the pain whether real or pyschological and do nothing about it. The worst case is our own perceptions of jobs - we call something we hate to do a job and then moan and whine about having to do it. When you start having problems getting up in the morning to go to the office then you need to stop and evaluate what the real problem is. Are you no longer happy where you are? If that's the case can you fix it from the inside or should you be moving on. I tried to fix my situation, didn't like the band-aids applied and decided it was time to move along. People don't do that - they live with the situation and allow it to eat them from the inside. Silly people!!!!

My new contact info is available for those that want it. Try my google mail wardspan at gmail.com and I can forward it along to you.

Notes from CTO breakfast

2004-10-20T09:26:00.000-06:00

First I should once again thank Phil Windley for hosting the CTO breakfast. It usually happens the last Friday of every month and the regular attendees always bring something to the table to discuss. I am not a CTO, don't claim to be one but hope some day to aspire to the levels the gentlemen that do attend have achieved. This is the only place where I feel I am not the largest geek in the room.

So I thought I had better throw my notes up here or else I will forget them.

So what topics got thrown on the table:

Google Desktop Search. Everything from the interesting traffic sent back to the mothership to how badly the processor is consumed from the launch of the program until the entire hard drive has been indexed. On my own machine this took a little over 3 hours to index. Someone mentioned Nat Friedman you may know him from his Ximian days (one of my all time favorites) but we went into his project Dashboard . This app is more useful in my eyes than what google is rolling out - the main thing to note here - people seem to want their google everywhere as we all aren't as organized as we thought.

QEMU was the next topic - I think the leap to virtualization came from the leader Phil - he always seems to understand when it's a great time to change the direction. Virtualization has become a hot topic followed closely or even tied into the ability to make virtualization invisible to the end user. There are the common products VMwar e (which I use), VirtualPC (former SCO employee swears by it) and then the open source revolution. Development has begun to cross platforms - if I have the app on OSX then I expect it to be over on my WindowsXP box - and it sure would be nice if I could run the same app on the linux box as well. The general consensus was that we may see a change in the way we see OS's that takes the desktop and makes it ambiguous across every platform. this brings the focus back to the applications and not what lies underneath. You can see this change in Apple - the move from OS9 to OSX fundamentally changed the OS and improved the functionality.

Security always get mentioned in one way or another - since I am really interested in it I usually bring it up but not this time. We talked about LogWatch, and some possible extensions to the security model it provides - RSS (XML not the person) got involved and some ideas were scribbled down - got to be careful sometimes we are always looking for that next big project so people have to stake their boundaries.

Downloads - how about a Friendster/Digital Fingerprint download suggestion web site. You could know that a download was clean, and who recommended it among your friends - you can then quickly determine whether you should ever trust your friends again and whether they actually have any idea of what good software is.

There were many little side discussions, more notes but these were the main hot topics. Always looking for new topics to introduce so feel free to drop me a comment.

Hmmm

2004-10-19T20:55:00.000-06:00

Sometimes when you least expect it you really have to stop and think. I say this because a vast majority of time we are wandering through life just making things work and not paying attention to what we are doing.

So recently I have been thinking about "What I want to be when I grow up?" Most people would assume that I am grown up - they would be wrong - my son and I get along perfectly because I stopped growing up somewhere around 18ish and well the average 18 year old is about the same maturity level as my 3 year old.

So my sudden questioning of possible career change started a few weeks ago when my wife suggested I started reading Zen and the Art of Making a Living. There are quotes from Joseph Campbell, Vincent van Gogh, James Joyce, D.T Suzuki, Anais Nin, William Blake and tons more. It is an amazing book . I am going to start trying to add a weekly comment about the book, and a quote that struck a cord with me.

On a side note: I get to go see Michael Moore tomorrow at UVSC - VIP section no less - have to dress like a young republican and I am going with at least two republicans but I respect their opinions so this should be interesting. I will try and snag some pixs and drop a comment afterwards.

Where in the world?

2004-10-05T19:26:00.000-06:00

So I am sitting in Baltimore - out here for some training on these amazing firewalls that were recently purchased for the project I am working on. The only thing that I am waiting for is for them to implement SSL VPNs and then it will be ranked as one of my favorite firewall devices out there.

Again with the politics - last night I got to sit down with a very dear friend of mine who happens to be working for Homeland Security. Eventually conversation came around to, "What would Ward do if he anyone listened?"

I started off with CALEA. In October 1994, Congress took action to protect public safety and national security by enacting the Communications Assistance for law enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA), Pub. L. No. 103-414, 108 Stat. 4279. The law further defines the existing statutory obligation of telecommunications carriers to assist law enforcement in executing electronic surveillance pursuant to court order or other lawful authorization and requires carriers to design or modify their systems to ensure that lawfully-authorized electronic surveillance can be performed.

A bunch of legal mumble jumble that basically says that we as telecommunications providers better have a method to allow law enforcement the ability to serve a warrant and tap phone/date communications. My problem is with the unfortunate guys that are sent by the various law enforcement agencies to certify and/or utilize the network. In this day and time, our continued worry of terrorism, whether it be cyber or real you need to have guys that can understand what they are looking at - the government has done nothing to provide the money necessary to prepare these guys - not to mention getting one of the agencies to send someone out to the site for review can be one long painful experience.

I don't have a problem with spending the time to help these guys but I am not law enforcement and at the end of the day I am not the one who has to know the laws and how to catch whoever they are after. Additionally if you are conducting illegal business in the electronic age utilizing the communication options available to you I would expect that you are going to be bright enough to know about things like PGP, Skype, or IPSec - and if you aren't you paid somebody to come work for you that showed you what technology was out there and how things worked - I am betting money that the law enforcement officer standing next to me is not going to be that informed. Spend the money to either hire guys like me that are willing to help out or train the guys you have working for you.

I won't carry on about the VoIP discussion that we had - I pointed to the benefits of VoIP but also the many ways that the services could be abused.

I told a little story about a little run in with TSA a few weeks ago. Coming through an airport I frequently travel through my carry-on was pulled and opened. Not an uncommon thing, upon opening my bag they discovered a pair of nail scissors, an item that had been in bag for the last three months of flying - I was informed they would have to confiscate them or I could return to the outside and hand them off to someone - nail scissors folks. At this point I was a bit frustrated with the very large guy they had now sent over to talk to me - asking him why they were dangerous he informed me that they could be held in your hand used to punch holes in someone's chest - this I agreed with - as for the threat - highly unlikely - I laughed and asked the employee if I could use his ballpoint pen. This I told him was much more dangerous than the scissors, I could perform a much more violent attack and the actual chance of killing someone with that pen were more likely - I then smiled and told him he could throw the scissors away. I fortunately wasn't grabbed and hauled away - but this does indicate to me a couple of problems.

The government has attempted to provide a false sense of security by increasing the security at airports and secondly the idea that me and my scissors would be dangerous are more likely the inability for an organization to actually understand the true threats that face this nation.

We need to stop being lemmings and following along. There is the possibility of future threats - Why? - Cowboys running things have pissed off enough people in this world that they are going to try and take a chip of the bully's shoulder. This is no longer a matter of whether we did right or wrong - that can of worms is open but now how are we going to clean up the mess. This should be the main focus of the current election.

The outcome of the conversation - I got to throw some of my issues on the table and he heard them - he asked for several of my business cards so he could throw them around the office - maybe I get the chance to talk to someone else that wants to hear what I think.

As I walked out the door he reminded me that my vote for Bush would help keep him in a job and feeding his family - I laughed - we both know my vote wasn't headed that way - then I reminded him that I knew my vote had already been cancelled out by another friend back in Utah. Great night with a really dear friend who tolerates my outspoken political ramblings.

Politics!?

2004-09-29T22:09:00.000-06:00

So I have been away for awhile - it's just been busy - 85 million has a way of doing that to you - the project has been going like gang busters (must be a term coined in the 20's when the Fed's were cracking down - Elliot Ness style)

We have been testing things - the speeds are amazing, I regularly disconnect from my enterprise network and utilize the raw FTTH speed for updating systems, and downloading content (television shows I missed during the week) Bittorrent is the video Napster of the moment. Sure beats my Tivo which is currently residing in Denver with my wife and family.

So what's new? The nation is trying to figure out who should be the next president - we have debates tomorrow between the candidates - we have the typical fire storm brewing about the fact that it is no longer an independent function, there are biases being created, yadda yadda yadda.

Guess what folks it doesn't matter - in a bit of clarity it finally smacked me in the face the other night -the democrats are going to choke because somewhere along the way we as a party chose to play nicely with the other children on the playground - we have a bully or two (Michael Moore & Al Franken) and I stretch the definition of bully to include these gentlemen.

However, when we flip to other side and please don't use liberal and conservative - those definitions were lost long ago and should never be applied when talking about politics today. They have O'Reilly (the man who never tells anyone to "shut up") Hannity and Combs, Rush (everyone’s favorite pill popping conservative watch dog) Limbaugh, and most of the cast of Fox News (oxymoron Fox News - hmm like military intelligence) - notice a trend here - the media is your most powerful ally when you become a politician - and the boys running things right now have the media drinking daily from their special kool aid mix.

You will hear the arguement, "the media is controlled by those freaking liberals" I tend to disagree with that assessment - a recent Time article noted "3092 Bush campaign ads that aired from January through June on cable channels that mostly attract affluent white male voters - same period 265 Kerry campaign ads" Wish I could find the New Yorker article (yes even living in Utah I can find the occasional dissident publication) that was attempting to make the same point.

Somewhere someone dropped the ball - why aren't there rude democrats? Who said things had to be nice and polite? The occasional shock jock, some musicians banding together are not going to swing the vote. College Humor (NSFW) has been running a political contest of sorts, actually think they might be on to something and then we have Votergasm (NSFW) - talk about setting the republicans off - Rush has been foaming at the mouth for two days now. MTV has Rock The Vote with VH1 throwing in their support too - that's the key - the youth - need to spin them up - give them a reason to want to jump on board, let them realize that no matter how screwed up things are the adults know that they are leaving the mess for the next generation to clean up.

Michael Moore is coming to town – here in Utah – the radio jocks hammer it daily – yet when you check the web site for tickets the event is completely sold out – the same can not be said for Sean Hannity. Kerry and crew better figure this out real soon and look back at their roots – Kerry needs to nut up (great southern expression), be the general pain in the @ss that helped him get to where he is today. Edwards needs to grab a bat and start swinging for the stands – the gunslinger and crew are not going to go away without a fight and we should all be a little worried if the upstarts manage to lose it.

Have I rambled enough - what am I trying to say - get out there do the research and add your vote to those in November. As a republican friend of mine noted the other day, "it disappoints me to know that my vote is being cancelled out by your vote." Happy to make that difference.

How to interview? Observations I have made.

2004-08-02T15:19:00.000-06:00

I just finished interviewing several candidates for a position I have open. In this day and age - people expect to know why they didn't get hired - most especially college graduates. So here's some advice I have going into the interview.

1st and foremost always exhibit confidence. Approach an interview as if you are selling something - Yourself! I bring examples of my previous work along. Whether it's the book I helped write or some documentation from my last project. The whole idea here is convincing the interviewer that by choosing you they will get the best ROI! (Return On Investment)

If you don't know the answer to a question have a strong supporting backup answer. How would you go about finding the answer? What resources would you utilize to determine the correct answer? 90% of the time the interviewer is looking to understand how you think and how you act on your feet.

Don't be afraid of failure - without failure you simply don't learn things in life. The questions I ask are standard interview questions all picked up from Google - learn a solid answer for these types of questions and again stick to that answer - personal answers are not the best answers. Interviewers are more interested in how you handled something on the job - be it college, senior project or an after school job.

Listen to the interviewer - they often give hints in their questions as to how they want you to answer them back. It could be within the question they are asking or it could have come in the discussion of a previous question.

Don't put it on your resume if you can't answer the question. It amazes me that people still do this. If the technical grilling doesn't catch it in the interview you will fall down on the job and then everyone knows it.

And finally read the job description closely - notice the hints as to what they will be interviewing you on. Create an outline of the necessary knowledge before the interview - I often make a multiple page review sheet before I go to an interview that refreshes me on the different questions that could arise from my resume and the job description.

Done gone and got funded

2004-07-29T09:31:00.000-06:00

As of 9:00 am MST the project I am happily working my life away on was funded.

This is a wonderful thing - it means there are people out there that believe in what we are going to deliver - FTTH - and it also has some sadness behind it - my life is about to go to hell in a handbasket. I have been enjoying working in the lab, testing code, writing software, learning the insides of the network and come Monday this all changes - all the real work begins and we deliver on the promise. (Any old WINfirst crew will remember this as our catch phrase.)

I am sure there is more to say but at this very moment I am supposed to be in a meeting.

The Bookstore - Yippie Skippie

2004-07-13T11:04:00.000-06:00

I went to the bookstore the other day. I love bookstores! - they are my college library. In college I was one of those kids that actually went to the library. When I pledged with my fraternity - I already knew where the library was - some of my pledge brothers actually had to dig out the map and locate the building on campus.

It could also be that as a little boy my father owned a college bookstore (same campus where I would end up going to school) and I grew up in a crib in the back among the books.

It might be that I was the only kid growing up that had a room in his house called the library, big chairs, well the old white oak house had big chairs and an ugly couch. The room had walls with shelves of books, and my dad; being the eclectic he was, had a book on every subject.

Anyway back to the post - I picked up two new books to add to my growing collection of Web/PHP/MySQL books and then as an after thought I picked up a new hacking/security book.

MySQL/PHP Database Applications
To quote the review, "Rather than make up trivial programs just to illustrate aspects of the MySQL/PHP environment, this book features code snippets, each half a page or so in length, that illustrate the behavior of key code structures. For example, in explaining conditional statements in PHP, the book gives you a no-frills IF statement with real values in place. It's not always obvious how the code structures will behave in practice, but the book does a consistently good job of commenting intelligently on the place of each aspect of the language in a well-designed application. The latter half of the book attacks specific problems--a chat system, a guest book, and so on--and walks through the setup of MySQL and each important PHP function for each. --David Wall" Couldn't have described it any better.

Dreamweaver MX 2004 - The Missing Manual
If you haven't ever picked up a missing manual - you have been missing out on the secrets of most every operating system, software application currently being used. I have read the OS X book, the iPod book, and even the Windoze XP book. These are great, nice simple lessons that show me how to easily take my raw php/mysql and add it to beautifully created web pages. Anything that helps me look better than I normally look works for me.

and finally a book that scares me a lot -

Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent
This books scares me in multiple ways - First as a wannabe hacker in my youth I am frightened to see how I could have been so easily swayed to make a real nuisance of myself for someone else's gain. Secondly as the acting Director of Security, building a FTTH network that will give some awesome capabilities to some misguided youth (nothing wrong with this - I was misguided) I see the endless possibilities that someone could take this network too. Finally I read this book and wonder to myself, (me wondering) "This book teaches those script kiddies that if they actually learned 2+2=4, or how to use MS Project, they too could be real nuisances to society. So in the end I give this book all my recommendation - want to understand how that dark world you are trying to protect your systems from work - read the first book in the series Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box Want to understand how your whole network could fit into someone's puzzle and be used to for their gain read the second book. I can't wait for the next book.

Tuesdays with Morrie

2004-07-10T19:01:00.000-06:00

Supposedly this is a great book. I bought a copy of it a little over a year ago, my wife immediately took it away from me and told me I could read it when she finished. Well here I sit still wondering whether I will ever get to read it. Now you ask - why is he going on about this book - well someone made a movie about it - didn't realize this...

So I was flipping through the channels- okay my mother in law was watching Oxygen and the movie happened to be coming on. So here I sit watching it, trying to gleam the few bits of wisdom the producers might have allowed to be included in a movie as they slaughtered the original manuscript.

I should go fishing - I think better when I am standing in the middle of a cool stream watching the water dapple as a trout noses up to the top to see what some crazy fool is throwing across the water.

PHP, MySQL...Oh my

2004-07-08T19:49:00.000-06:00

So I have been working on this provisioning tool I posted about. Things have changed since I last posted on it. I have changed from building it entirely inside of a TCL wrapper and instead designed this wonderful little web tool. It's quick, smooth, and has the ability to easily grow as new requirements become pressing needs. Those designers in the crowd understand how scope creep allows one gadget, button, request to suddenly take precedent over another one.

In the process of building this tool I have come to love three books: (has to be love when I regulary haul them back and forth from office to house.)

PHP and MySQL Web Development

The purple book - This book has a great layout,you start building an order system for Bob's Auto Parts and work through adding to the scripts. I keep thinking it's an O'Reilly book, and looking for it on my Safari account when I can't remember something. It is what I consider one of the best references going for building good web sites.

PHP MySQL Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution

This book has given me some processes for building a website from the ground up. I have just spun my own sites out without really thinking about it, looking at the flows, or even deciding how the file structure should be constructed before I actually began programming. I took those classes back in my college programming days and forgot them soon after I became a Network Engineer.

and finally because everyone should have a book about web site design from one of the best

Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing

I have owned this book for several years, quoted from it (CTO Breakfast) and generally have used this book as reference for everything web related I have ever touched. Philip is always writing something interesting, he had an amazing company (I dreamed of working for his company. You can do a little research on the web and find out how about the demise of ArsDigita.)

Little Girls

2004-06-28T14:10:00.000-06:00

Haven't been around for a few weeks - My life got turned upside down about two weeks early. My spank'n new little girl showed up on June 20th. The doctor, my wife, son and myself were all under the impression that she would arrive in our hands July 4th. She obviously didn't get the memo...

So I got McKaia Ann at 14:08 MST on June 20th. She came into the world at 7.46 lbs, and 18.5 inches long - I think that was a bit of a stretch - she is so tiny. I can hold all of her in one hand - amazing!

I will try to get back up to date - have a very busy week in front of me - Service Provider is in town, need to finish the mockups for provisioning web pages, and look at the video channel manager.

New RSS Reader

2004-05-26T08:27:00.000-06:00

So here we go again - trying a new reader on my Windows PC - Sauce Reader - I have been swapping as much well I live in Utah you make up the joke to go along with that.

I already like this reader it allows me from inside of various feeds to go ahead and blog about it, as well as just to create my own on the fly. makes it nice when I am sitting in a meeting come up with a thought after reading someone's feed and want to pass it along.

I am intrigued with RSS and what can be done with it. I have been working on an interface for the provisioning system, as an addition to the interface I have added a RSS feed that allows the NOC Manager the ability to see all the ports being configured. So we have a rolling status window of all the installs taking place in the field. Neat way to tweak the technology for a constant update. As an addition I also have the interface track all the configured ports per NOC technician and deliver a newsletter at the end of the day showing the productivity and errors broken out. Should be an interesting tracking model for the NOC.

Tcl_Dev_Kit 3.1 - Building TclApps

2004-05-20T11:05:00.000-06:00

Tcl_Dev_Kit 3.1 - Building TclApps

So for the last week I have been messing around with this Expect script, fondly known in my office as the WardGUI, it will allow a NOC technician the ability to choose a specific community switch location, then the slot and port number associated with a specific house and finally the services that need to be enabled for that location. The script works, needs some spit and polish and to actually have some files to pull the variables from but it delivers the goods on my one test switch. (Please see the UTOPIA project if this makes no sense to you.)

So then I decided I needed to get fancy and as I like to consider myself a bit of a *nix nut let's add some fun to the mix. Originally the GUI part was going to be driven from the web but then I got the bright idea I could wrap this whole thing up in a pretty little TclApp - this would allow me to run it on my happy Mac, the Windows XP box I have been beating the script out on or the FreeBSD box I originally wrote the Expect script on. Now the people in the audience are watching this and someone just whispered, "you know you could do that on all those machines with a web interface?" Yes, I know that but where's the challenge and besides I am building it and you're not, so leave me alone.

To most programmers this would seem quite trivial - they could more than likely knock this little doodad out in a day but to a non-programmer (I build networks man!) this has been quite a struggle. ActiveState is doing their best to help me accomplish this with their documentation, and demos. I will let you know how this thing turns out.

If anyone has any good TclApps that I should take a look at let me know. Might as well learn how to do this right the first time.

SecurityFocus HOME Infocus: TCP/IP Skills Required for Security Analysts

2004-05-19T10:44:00.000-06:00

SecurityFocus HOME Infocus: TCP/IP Skills Required for Security Analysts

This article brings to point something that has bothered me off and on for awhile. You need the skills before you claim you can do it.

For several years now I have been interviewing network engineers. I have a standard that I have been following that involves a 15 page Excel spreadsheet that contains basic questions that most CCNAs should be able to answer. During the process of giving out this interview I have had various reactions - several gentlemen have left in tears - to having one engineer actually point out an error in my questions. He got hired immediately.

Interviewing has gotten tougher in our industry - before you put a resume out there make sure you understand everything you claim you know. You don't have to be able to recite the specific RFC details assocaited with MGCP.

I encourage young engineers to understand the OSI model, play around with the TCP stack, learn how things communicate, but don't forget to take the time to understand the architecture within your computer and it's relation to the OS's - Windows XP, Linux, FreeBSD.

2004-05-18T13:23:00.000-06:00

So I decided it was time to start logging again. It has been so long since I last touched the keyboard.

I now live in Saratoga Springs, UT. A small little town with great aspirations of becoming a little larger town. Hey, it has a grocery store, movie rental store, a gas station, and two pizza parlors.

The city building leaves a little to be desired but then it's paid for. If the city ever need s to move, our city council can walk outside and bolt the wheels back on.

I moved here to Utah from Colorado because I was finally convinced that there was a need for FTTH (Fiber To The Home) The project I am currently working on is called UTOPIA. A very unfortunate name but all in all a very interesting project.

I have been involved with the project for over a year now. I have had a range of responsibilities including and not limited to speaking in front of several city council meetings, the Utah Senate Transportation & Public Utilities & Technology Standing Committee, and anyone else I could get to stop and listen to me.

My current title is Director of Integration and Security. Many would think what an amazing title, you must have so much responsibility. Well they would be right about one thing - I currently have 7 projects open on my desktop that require my attention by the end of this month. We are after all a start up and everything that comes with being a startup has landed on or near my desk if it has anything to do with integrating this network.

Oh and don't forget I also need to make sure we are secure about what we are doing. I picked my CISSP up at the start of this project and fortunately the things I learned concerning Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, Cyber Incident Response, and Forensics have all come to be useful. Still not sure why I need to remember how tall a secure fence needs to be and why again it needed 3 strands of barb wire.

Well that's enough for now. I will be trying to relay my thoughts, interesting articles etc. through this interface to the world.

Interesting tidbits of the web I have found.

GloFish
I love this. I really need to get one - maybe I could carry it around with me at night , bound to be better on the environment than a battery.

Newspaper Kites
This is an important skill to know. Whether you build a kite for yourself or children, this will always manage to bring a smile. Paper airplanes are acceptable on rainy days but nothing is better than a blustery March day and a kite pulling at your arm.

CERT
You should take a look at least once a week if you are in the technology business. It's always better to know that you have a system that has a major compromise than it is to find out 2 days later when a script kiddie has crashed your web server into the ground. Remember the moment you connect to the net you are working without a safety net.

2002-08-06T23:57:00.000-06:00

Alright I know I built the whole damn site with FrontPage. Yes, I know I should be using Dreamweaver or even notepad if I am I going to continue my silly ways and use Microsoft products - but FrontPage 2002. My excuse - I got friends that work for the evil empire and they have jobs where as I don't. You decide which product you would learn if you could get it for cheap.

Another beautiful day in Colorado - 49 days and counting without a job - is 50 going to be lucky for me?

Is it bad when the entire days' worth of conversations are with your 20 month old son and you are still wondering exactly what he was saying?

If the state is experiencing a drought - does it make sense to hike up to a lake somewhere in the neighborhood of 11340 feet above sea level to fly fish?

If the telecom industry is so messed up - you think I could get a job as a CEO of one of these companies for a few months to try my hand at running things?

There's no crying in FrontPage! (Loosely quoted/borrowed from Tom Hanks)

On a side note: What is all this extra crap that FrontPage adds to the web page? I have been trying to make my page match up correctly for the last half hour and I finally figure out what little piece of code I was missing in the nine hundred additional lines that FP decided were necessary for me to display the page correctly. Argh!!!!