Where in the world?

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!?

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.

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.