Novell, Utah and the Libertarian Party

Some new news out today was about Novell completing its sale to Attachmate. Wow, the end of an era...

Novell really does have a special place in my heart - NetWare was the first network operating system I learned, way back in the version 2.15c days. Anyone remember those? Then I moved on to v2.2, 3.12, 4.0 and then 4.1. I obtained my first IT certification - the CNE - that was all about NetWare. I even wrote/sold my own patch management application for NetWare before patch management was cool.

Another great thing about Novell was their BrainShare conference. I see that they've moved it from March to October; glad I got my skiing in when I did! Going to BrainShare every year I not only got to know NetWare like the back of my hand but I also discovered the beauty of Utah - in particular its microbreweries and its snow skiing. Absolutely lovely.

To my final point, I was having lunch with a close friend recently who shared my Novell bigotry back in the day and shares my love for limited government right now. We were talking politics and about how the Tea Party mindset consists of regular guys like him and me who are fed up with Republican and Democrat politicians alike so keenly focused on government expansion and intrusion into our lives. I told him the Tea Party mantra used to be called the Libertarian Party. The Tea Party, like Microsoft, rose out of nowhere and grabbed all the attention. I told my friend how sad it is that the Libertarian Party, like Novell, has consistently failed to market itself as a viable option and, thus, we are where we are today. Just damn.

Novell, Libertarian Party or whatever - lots of excellent products and great ideas are/were out there for the taking. Logic sales but who's buying...?

Read More

What's this "firewall" you speak of??

It seems that #firewalls are making a comeback. Of course, I felt compelled to throw in my two cents worth so here are some new pieces I wrote for the fine folks at SearchNetworking.com on firewalls and firewall management:

Firewall change management and automation can curb human error

Do Web application firewalls complicate enterprise security strategy?

Planning a virtualization firewall strategy

Enjoy!

As always, be sure to check out www.principlelogic.com/resources.html for links to all of my information security books, articles, whitepapers, podcasts, webcasts and more.

Read More

The positive side of infosec

"Have you ever, even once, stopped to marvel at just how often things go right? It's amazing." -Richard Carlson

With all of the smack talk and negative approaches so many of us (myself included) take regarding IT and information security, this'll make you realize that it's not all bad. I we could all benefit from stopping to smell the roses and seeing the bright side of our field every now and then.

Read More

Tidbits on enterprise mobile security

Here are some recent pieces I wrote for SearchEnterpriseDesktop.com on the subject of mobile security that you may be interested in:

Securing the new desktop: enterprise mobile devices

Security tools that can boost Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 security

Whole disk encryption gotchas to look out for

Enjoy!

As always, be sure to check out www.principlelogic.com/resources.html for all of my information security articles, whitepapers, podcasts, webcasts and more.

Read More

Amazon's cloud outage - does it change your perception of the cloud?

Everyone (okay, many; especially the vendor marketing types) keeps swearing by the "cloud"...and then Amazon's EC2 goes down today. How does that affect how you view the cloud?

I've been a skeptic and I'm still a skeptic...beware the cloud bandwagon.

Read More

Holy Cow: Police seizing info from phones during traffic stops

Here's some big time scary stuff personally and something that'll no doubt lead to big time security problems for the enterprise. Michigan State Police are copying data off of smartphones during minor traffic stops using the Cellebrite Universal Forensics Extraction Device. Images, address books, files, whatever...it's now fair game for the police (Gestapo?) in Michigan to take whatever whenever.

Is this government out of control or what!?

I know we've all but forgotten about the Constitution in this country but if this happens to me, I guarantee you they'd get nothing - I mean nothing - without probable cause and a warrant.

Yet another reason to force users to put passwords on their smartphones....Oh, and a control that wipes the phone after X number of failed password attempts.

Wow, crazy stuff...what's going to be next?

Read More

Legalese in email footers is useless

Ever get annoyed by those email footers telling you what you can or cannot do with the email you just received? Yeah, me too. Here's an interesting bit from Consumer Reports that talks about how those legal disclaimers in email footers may be legally useless.

It's funny, every time I see them (they're in about 60-70% of the non-spam emails I recieve) I think it's yet another representation of the American way to disclaim any personal responsibility. If anything goes awry when sending an email, it's someone else's fault.

Furthermore, as Consumer Reports mentions at the end of the article, the run-on sentences end up using more ink and paper when emails are printed...wonder what the "global warming" crowd thinks of that? Now there's an opportunity for the the anti-capitalism movement that I might consider buying in to.

Anyway, however you see this issue, be sure to speak with your legal counsel first before making any rash decisions (like reconfiguring Exchange to drop these email footers once and for all). ;-)

Read More